Wanted
by DiscordianSamba
Summary: AU. Sequel to Dangerous Obsessions. 4 months after the battle with May, Danny is trying to get his screwed up life back on track. But someone other than May has had their eyes on him... and he wants him back. CANCELLED.
1. It's Not Over Yet

AN: Sequel. It smells good. Or maybe that's the smell of the burning peppermint oil I'm using to work out the soreness in my shoulders... Anyways, Here's chapter one of Wanted, the sequel to Dangerous Obsessions! It's advised that you read the first story, first, which, by the way, is one of my favorites of those I have written.

It took me awhile to decide on the villains for this, but when it finally hit me, it was like, DUH! Of course! Eee-yep. Phoenix is my new baby for this story, and more will be explained about him as the story progresses.

And fanart, including another lovely piece by dragonghosthalfa! She's so sweet to me, and I really do adore her! Oh, and remember to take out the spaces.

www. deviantart. com/ view/ 31933509/ (Sam and Demigiest Phantom, by dragonghosthalfa. Give her love, folks!)

www. deviantart. com/ view/ 31865739/ (Obligatory Danny angst picture)

www. deviantart. com/ deviation/ 31467807/ (Danny. In a bathing suit. Need I say more?)

www. deviantart. com/ deviation/ 31466628/ (Me goofing around. Phantom!)

Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me, however, Phoenix Clover, Matthew and May Clayborne, and Nazami and Mori, do! So no takey them, k? Because if you take them, I'll kill you. And really, do you doubt that I would?

Wanted

Chapter One: It's Not Over Yet

"Danny! _DANNY! _Geez, wake up, will you?"

"Huh?" Eighteen-year old Danny Fenton blinked awake, looking up to find the lovely face of his girlfriend, the also eighteen-year old Samantha Manson, glaring down at him, her face set in a look of severe disapproval. "Oh, hey Sam." He said, seemingly oblivious to Sam's anger.

"Hey Sam? _Hey, Sam?_ Is that all you have to say, Danny?" Sam asked, glaring at him in annoyance. Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her chest, and she was tapping her bare left foot against the sand. She was wearing a black tankini, violet stripes running down the side of the two-piece suit. "We've been looking all over for you, and here we find you just lounging around on the beach, not a care in the world!"

"Annnddd the problem with that is?" Danny asked, arching an eyebrow. He was contently stretched out across a beach chair, chewing idly on a straw he had gotten from a soda he had finished about two hours ago. He was wearing a pair of black swim trunks, with steel-colored flames printed on them. His torso was bare, exposing the vast collection of scars he had accumulated over the past four years, as well as a tattoo of bat wings on his back, which resembled in everything but color to his ghost form's ecto-wings.

"The problem with that is you just suddenly disappeared. You know that makes us worry Danny, especially considering that the last time you disappeared, you were gone for four years!" Sam said, frowning. "Not to mention, when you came back, you had an evil psychic lady intent on capturing you and using your for god-knows-what."

"Oh relax, would you?" Danny said, smirking slightly at her, amused. "I wouldn't leave here." He plucked the straw out of his mouth, twirling it in one hand, looking at her. "I mean, after all, I've got something here that I would never leave without." He said, grinning at Sam.

Sam turned red. After all this time, Danny's strange come-ons still made her blush, even though she knew that was exactly what he wanted. She just couldn't help it, and she probably never could.

It had been four months since the final battle and death of May Clayborne. Danny had decided to stay in Amity Park, instead of just kidnapping Sam and running away like he had originally planned, much to everyone's delight, especially Sam's. She loved Danny, but she wasn't exactly too keen on the idea of spending countless years trapped in the Ghost Zone with Danny and his possibly deranged friends.

And so Jack, Maddie, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker had begun to get to know their son, brother, boyfriend, and best friend. Even four months after the battle with May, and the revelation of his racial and mental status to his friends and family, Danny was still more secretive than they would have liked. But, as Jazz had concluded, Danny was the kind of person who would just shove a traumatic experience to the back-burner until it managed to force its way back out again. Hopefully, this time it wouldn't come out as a plot to re-capture Danny.

Danny had changed a lot in the four years of his absence, and most of that was due to a woman known as May Clayborne, someone who, quite possibly, could be considered the most deranged and the most sadistic woman on the planet. And quite possibly even the most deranged and sadistic woman in the universe. Danny and Sam, the two people who know May's cruelty better than anyone, could believe that was possible quite easily.

May was the head of researach at a governmental research facility known as The Institute, which was now defunct, since Matthew Clayborne, her younger brother, had released all of its prisoners. It was where Danny had been trapped in for three years. May was also a psychic, blessed with a higher intelligence than most people. She was planning to conquer the world, because, in her views, the world would be so much better with her at the helm.

It was through her experiments and her use of Danny in cruel fights, as well as keeping him locked in his ghost-form, that caused Danny to turn into a creature known as a demigiest. Demigiests are, essentially, what happens when a ghost looses its mind. They were closer to poltergeist and vengeful spirits, than they were to ghosts.

Danny had changed, and his friends and family knew that he may never be able to return to the sweet, though somewhat naive boy that he used to be. He was now a much more outgoing person, more likely to use violence as opposed to words when he wanted to get something his way. He was definitely insane, and had the unique ability to carry on a conversation with himself that spanned over three hours. He was obsessed with Sam, whom Maddie described as Danny's 'Point of Obsession'.

"Well, still, Danny, stop randomly disappearing all the time." Sam said, her blush now faded.

"Hey, I'm half-ghost. I can't help but randomly disappear all the time. By the way, you look good in that swimsuit." Danny said, grinning, changing the topic.

Danny got up from the beach chair, to cast an eye around the beach. The Fentons, his parents, had taken him, Sam, and Tucker to the beach in celebration of their graduating from high school. Well, Sam and Tucker graduated, but Danny, as it turned out, simply didn't have enough hours too. It didn't seem to bother Danny much, though.

Sam blushed again, but shook her head, trying to shake it off. "Um, thank you..."

"So, what do you want to do, Sam?" Danny asked, looking at his girlfriend, grinning. He moved to the other side of her, and place and arm around her shoulder, leaning down slightly so that they were on the same height level. "Maybe take a swim, get some refreshments, make out, just relax, sleep together, or what?" He asked, his grin widening.

Sam flushed a deep shade of crimson and shrugged off Danny's arm, stopping on his foot with all of her might. "Danny! That's not funny!"

Danny laughed, his white teeth flashing in a wide grin. "Oh come on Sam. If it weren't for you getting all blushy all the time, I wouldn't even be bothering you like this."

"Oh, so you're trying to blame the fact that you're a jerk on me?" Sam asked, shooting a glare at him. Sometimes, he could really be quite unbearable. Still, she loved his unbearable side, as well as all of his other sides. He had many, she had discovered, and there were probably more that she just didn't know about yet.

"Mmm, I guess I am." Danny smirked, leaning in and planting a quick kiss on her lips. He then quickly got out of Sam's striking range, before she decided to stomp on his foot again. He was, after all, not a masochist. Although sometimes, it really could be a bit hard to tell.

"There you two are! Danny, Sam! Hey!" The two turned, coming face to face with a grinning Tucker, and an amused Jazz. Tucker ran up to them, his grin growing wider as he stopped in front of them. He had been the one to call out their names.

Jazz took her time in crossing the beach, walking slowly, and looking quite amused. It had taken her a little time to get used too, but now she found her brother's frequent lapses into mental instability quite enlightening. She did, after all, want to be a psychologist, and there really was no other better source of information than having a messed-up kid brother of her very own. It was actually Jazz who had thought to time one of Danny's conversations with himself, but even she was shocked that he could carry one on for three hours straight.

"Heeey, I saw that." Tucker said, grinning, nudging Danny in the ribs slightly. Tucker and Danny's father were the only ones who could nudge Danny, without having to worry about getting thrown over his shoulder. Although Sam, Jazz, and Maddie sometimes got the feeling that Danny really would like to.

Originally, it was only Jack that had permission to bother Danny relentlessly, because Danny couldn't exactly maim his own father. The immunity to maiming had expanded to Tucker once Danny discovered that Sam got mad every time he tried to maim Tucker.

"Would you stop that?" Danny asked, in an irritated voice, resisting the urge to dunk his old friend's head in the sand. It wasn't that he hated Tucker, exactly, it was just that at times he found the techno geek to be quite annoying. And maiming was just his way of telling someone to shut the hell up. And that was with people he liked.

"Am I getting on your nerves?" Tucker asked, grinning, and pulling back from his nudging position. Danny said nothing, but the twitch in his right eye answered any and all questions that they might have.

"Don't mind him Danny. He's just enjoying himself." Jazz said, finally stepping onto the scene, smiling at her annoyed little brother.

"Yeah, well, I'd wish he'd find some other way to enjoy himself! Why doesn't he go play a Tetris marathon or something?" Danny said, his arm crossed in annoyance, his moods shifting faster than quicksilver.

"I already did that two days ago. I actually beat my high score from the last time I did a Tetris marathon." Tucker said.

"...You've actually had a Tetris marathon?" Danny asked, staring at Tucker, who nodded. Danny blinked, and frowned, his mood shifting again. "Geez, and people call me insane! At least I don't stay up countless hours into the night playing Tetris! Well, yeah, I do stay up countless hours into the night thinking about Sam. And yeah, sometimes I don't even go to sleep at all, because I'm so distracted by Sam, or because either Mori or Nazami randomly pop into my room and start babbling about one thing or the other. And sometimes they both come in. And sometimes when they both come in, they both start making out, which leads to them having sex in my room, which leads to me being so disturbed that I cannot possibly hope to go to sleep again for an entire week. I wonder if those two know that, and are just trying to mess with me..."

Danny blinked, snapping out of his conversation with himself, looking at the expressions on his companions faces. Jazz had whipped out a notebook, and was jotting down notes on it, seemingly disappointed that Danny had stopped.

Tucker was staring at him, his eyes perked up slightly at the mentioning of Danny's two ghost friends actually going so far as to have sex in his room, and wondering just how deeply Maddie, Jack, and Jazz slept not to hear that.

Sam just stared at him. She was more used to Danny randomly breaking into conversations with himself, but no matter how much you heard it, it was always still a bit disturbing. One time, Sam recalled, Danny had started to talk to himself about how much he wanted to throttle the person who invented algebra, and somehow, forty minutes later, he had wound up talking about, of all things, fish sticks. How his conversation had gotten to that point baffled even Danny. Sometimes he didn't really listen to the stuff that came out of his mouth.

"...Was I conversating with myself again?" Danny asked, blinking. The trio assembled just nodded. It was best not to say anything at times like these, less Danny launch into yet another conversation with himself.

* * *

"_That's _the one you're after?"

Nineteen-year old Phoenix Clover sat, perched upon a nearby lifeguard stand. Nobody noticed him, but it was not because he did not stand out, because he did, but it was because he had caused those around to loose their vision of him. The teenager, hooded and cloaked, despite the summer heat, started down at Danny Fenton and his companions. He had been sent by his master to watch them, and prepare to take action that would lead to the re-capturing of Danny Fenton, a weapon that the government direly wanted.

Phoenix, could not, by any means, be mistaken for a normal human. He was another patient at The Institute, arriving there before Danny's time. He had been there during May's hostile takeover, and had been there in the aftermath. He was one of the longest staying patients at The Institute. He was sold by his mother to it when he was only seven, and had grown up there. It was no surprise then, that the boy was positively deranged.

Underneath his dark brown hood and cloak, Phoenix had short, jet black hair, cropped at his neck, and pale skin. He was quite skinny, but not so much that it made him look anorexic. He wore a black long-sleeved shirt, and black bondage pants, his outfit finished off by black fingerless gloves and black combat boots.

And that was where his similarities to normal humans ended. Covering the expanse of his entire body was a network of thin, dark blue veins. His eyes were yellow, and silted in a Draconian fashion, as well as not being on the same level. One eye was slightly higher than the other.

This resulted in an inability to could not see. But fortunately, his veins provided him the most excellent window to the world. They could detect something as minute as a slight change in the wind. So while he could not see Danny and his companions, he was close enough so that his vein sense had already charted over every accessible inch of them.

"Yes. Why, is something wrong?" A voice came across on the other side of the cell phone he was holding.

Phoenix frowned. "No, nothing." The mutant had learned better than to argue with his master.

"Good. Then you will carry out my orders as directed, correct?" The voice on the other end of the cell phone asked.

"Yes, I will, Master." Phoenix said. The cell phone went silent then, and Phoenix assumed the man had hung up. He closed to phone, and resumed his vigil, observing Danny, his friends, and family.

* * *

"Hey kids!" Maddie Fenton said chipperly, approaching the group, along with her husband, Jack. She was, for once, out of her aqua Hazmat, and was wearing an aqua one-piece instead. Maddie looked incredibly good for a woman in her forties. Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had long passed it off to all the exercise she got ghost-hunting, and practicing martial arts in order to ghost-fight. "I see you found Danny." She commented, looking at her son.

Jack, however, was still in his Hazmat, although he seemed to be regretting it under the blazing summer sun. "You've been on the beach all along? We were looking all over for you!"

"Well, we _are _at the beach. What else is there to do but go to the beach? Since, you know, Sam won't let me make out with her." Danny said, pointing at Sam, almost as if he was accusing her of something.

"Danny, Danny, Danny I already told you, you can't make out with Sam until you get into college." Jack said.

"Of course, considering you just flunked twelfth grade, I don't know when that will ever be..." Tucker chimed in.

"Eeee-yep. Which means you might never be able to make out with Sam for a long, long time..." Jack said.

"Would you two just shut up?" Danny shouted at them, his eyes blazing crimson. "The only reason I didn't graduate was because you were so busy testing out your inventions on me that I never got the chance to go to half of my classes!"

"Actually, even if you did go to your classes, Danny, you would still have been four years behind all the other students..." Jazz spoke, interrupting her brother. "And since you wouldn't let me tutor you, it really was highly unlikely for you to pass this year."

"Hey, you're supposed to take my side!" Danny turned to Jazz, pointing at her. He had calmed down though, his eyes turning back to their usual shade of azure.

"Well, it's true Danny. You didn't exactly seem to want to pass either, and you caved in way too easily whenever dad wanted to test one of his inventions on you, or mom wanted to run some kind of minor test." Jazz explained.

"You know I'm only doing what's best for you and that all I want for you is for you to succ-Danny! Stop mocking me!" Jazz shouted, upon seeing that Danny was making his hand flap like a mouth as Jazz talked.

Danny rolled his eyes, cleaning out one of his ears. Those assembled noted for the first time that the demigiest hybrid was waltzing around outdoors sans the hat that he needed to hide his pointed ears, one of the features he had gained upon his transformation into a demigiest, that showed up in his human form as well as his ghost form. The other were his black claw-like nails, but he usually kept those trimmed while human.

"What?" Danny asked, catching the quintet staring at him. "Something on my face? Besides my face? Because if you were going to say that, then I would be so pissed off, because that joke has got to be one of the stupidest I've ever heard..."

"Uh... no." Sam said, staring at her boyfriend. "It's your ears."

"Well yeah, ears are a common body part too you know." Danny said, rolling his eyes, obviously not getting what his friends and family were trying to tell him.

"No, I mean, how come you're not wearing a hat? What if somebody sees em?" Sam said, sighing.

"Sam, Sam, Sam. I'm not stupid, you know." Danny said, shaking his head and sighing. "I mean, come on, I've been sitting here for the past two hours, and nobody's noticed. Complete strangers don't pay attention to each others ears. I mean, seriously, if they did, that would be... really weird." Danny said, arching an eyebrow. "It would be like dogs, but instead of checking out each other's butts, we'd check out each others ears... What!" Danny asked again, annoyance in his voice, because his companions were once again giving him another strange look.

Maddie sighed. "Nevermind Danny. Let's all just enjoy the warm, sunny Florida weather, allright? This is a vacation, and we're supposed to relax, and not argue amongst ourselves." Maddie paused and looked at Danny. "Or with ourselves, for that matter. _Especially _not with ourselves." Probably even more frightening than Danny's conversations with himself were his occasional arguments with himself.

"Yeah, sure..." Danny said. His eyes then drifted back over to Sam, and he grinned slightly. "Hey Sam, you want to go get a soda?"

"And by that do you mean, do I want to go get a soda, or do I want you to take me to get a soda, but in actually, it's all just a set-up for another one of your embarrassing plots." Sam said, her violet eyes looking accusingly at Danny.

"Maybe both." Danny said, shrugging.

Sam shook her head. "What am I going to do with you...?" She smiled though. "But yes, I would love a soda. Thank you."


	2. A Moment's Peace

AN: Yay! Chapter Two! Once again, sorry for the update lapse, but I was at Latin Camp. At where, I learned that the answer to everything is either 42, pancakes, or 42 pancakes, and that nothing is more fun than prank-calling the Neo Nazis, pretending to be Viargra salesmen. What do you mean that has nothing to do with Latin? It sure does! Anyways, I've been wanting to write a scene like this between Maddie and Danny for quite some time, and I'm glad I finally was able too. I really like moments of parental bonding, probably because I'm not really that close to either of my parents. And a shout out to all of my readers, reviewers, watchers, and story favvers. I love you guys!

Danny Phantom does not belong to me, however, Mori, Nazami, and Phoenix all do! Oh, and this fanfic too. Steal it, and I will eat your brains.

Wanted

Chapter Two: A Moment's Peace

"So, Danny, any particular reason that the soda stand just _happened _to run out of glasses when we arrived? And not to mention the fact that they seem to have mysteriously misplaced all of their straws but one." Sam looked across the table to the raven-haired teen across from her, his azure eyes gleaming with un-hidden amusement and mischief. "Because, it just seems very convenient that we're now forced to share one cup and one straw."

Danny simply continued to grin at her, saying nothing. Sam shook her head, smiling to herself. Sometimes, she thought, Danny could really be quite childish.

But at other times, he could be truly frightening, more like a monster than a human. Sam would glady take Danny's childish moments over his more deranged ones, any day. She was secretly grateful that she had been unable to see the last part of Danny's battle with May. She didn't think she could handle seeing him commit murder, not even of someone like May, who didn't deserve to live.

There had been many more people besides just May, Sam knew, but she couldn't blame Danny for any of them. He had been under the influence of May's mind control chip at the time. He was unable to resist her orders, and would become a killing machine at her request, so she could so him off to people interested in a half-ghost weapon.

The thought that people high up in the government knew of Danny's secret disturbed her greatly. May must have never recorded Danny's real name in her files though, seeing as how, as far as she knew, the government hadn't reared it's head in Amity Park since they had a special escort take May's corpse away. There had been no searching for Danny, at least not in so far as she was aware.

_I hope it stays that way. _She thought, as she found her eyes once again trailing over the multitude of scars covering Danny's chest. There wasn't a single small scar among them, and all of them were unmistakably battle scars. They were what their fellow beach goers were staring at when they paused to look at Danny.

"Danny?" She asked, looking at him.

"Hn?" Danny looked at her, tilting his head slightly. "What is it?"

"Do... they ever hurt?" She asked, her voice almost sounding nervous.

Danny blinked for a second, not knowing what it was that Sam was asking about. It dawned on him then, and he found his own azure eyes drifting down towards his scarred chest. He frowned, staring at them, his eyes tracing their familiar paths. Sometimes they did hurt, especially when he was feeling especially mentally vulnerable. His latest scar, the one he had gotten on his left shoulder during his battle with May, still stung like hell. Sometimes Danny thought it might stay like that because of the nature of the attack that had given him the scar-a well placed blast made of psi energy.

"Nah. They don't hurt." He said, lying. He knew Sam could tell that he was lying, too, but the gothic girl didn't press the subject. That was one thing he liked about Sam. She knew when to stop asking questions. If it was Jazz asking the questions, he might never get her to shut up.

Danny didn't really like talking about anything even slightly relating to The Institute. He tried to pretend as if it had never happened, either ignoring people when they asked questions about it, or giving them very vague answers.

"Are you ever worried that they'll come for you?" Sam asked, after taking a small sip of the Coke placed in between the two. Normally, she didn't drink carbonated beverages, but Danny had insisted on it, and Sam had relented.

"Nah. I can handle anything those guys try and throw at me." Danny said, shrugging. "I mean, what would they send after me anyways, army men? Ghost hunters? I'm not as weak as I was when I was fourteen, so there's no way I'm going to wind up getting captured again."

Sam smiled at him. "Just be careful, okay Danny? You never know what they might have. And I really don't want to loose you again."

"You won't." Danny said, staring at her, his azure eyes locked on with her violet ones, a rare look of sane determination in them. Danny did get determined about things, of course, but most of the times his eyes possessed a rather mental look in them. "I promise."

Sam smiled at him. Danny smiled back, the determined look relaxing and disappearing. He leaned in and took a sip of the soda, then offered the straw to her. "Indirect kiss?" He asked, grinning with amusement.

"But of course." Sam smiled, leaning towards the soda, and taking a sip of it, her eyes grinning at Danny while she drank.

"Hey, Sam..." Danny asked, trailing off a bit, looking at her, his eyes trailing briefly over how she looked when she had her closed. Sam looked up at him, a questioning look on her face. "Now that you've graduated high school, what are you going to do?" He asked, curious. He had never really discussed their futures as adults with his friends-he never had the chance to before he had run away.

"Hmmm..." Sam paused, thinking. "I was thinking of going to college to get either degrees in environmental science, or political science."

Danny stared at her, his eyebrows shooting up. "You want to be a politician?"

Sam shrugged. "People listen to politicians, and someone needs to be a leader for environmental causes. If I could get elected to any sort of body at all, I bet I could be able to do a lot of good for the environment."

"That's a lot like you Sam." Danny said, flashing a smile at her. Sam was one of the kindest people that Danny knew. Even his mother and his sister didn't rank up anywhere near her.

Sam shrugged. "Just trying to do my part. Indirect kiss?" She asked, sliding the coke glass over towards him.

Danny slyly grinned at her and slid the Coke aside, leaning across the table to plant a kiss on Sam's lips. He pulled back, smirking. "I think I prefer the direct approach."

* * *

The day at the beach passed rather uneventfully, at least in a threatening sense. It certainly wasn't boring to the Fentons and their friends. Danny had, rather juvenilely, interrupted Tucker's attempt to flirt with woman by turning his bathing trunks intangible, causing them to fall down. Needless to say, all the girls ran away screaming.

Tucker, had of course, gotten his vengeance (after he had pulled his trunks back up) by chasing Danny around the beach with the Fenton Thermos. Danny didn't exactly enjoy the idea of being sucked up into that cramped space. He had once before, when he had set the living room sofa on fire. Maddie trapped him in the thermos as punishment for about three hours. The Fenton Thermos really _wasn't _the Taj Mahal.

After managing to escape from Tucker's thermos wrath, Danny had come back to mess with Sam, flirting with her terribly. Jazz eventually intervened, saving the poor Goth girl from further embarrassment, by dragging her brother off to help her in sand castle building contest. Danny had grumbled about it, but he had obliged.

Maddie and Jack watched on with amusement, unaware that they were not the only ones watching Danny and his companions. Phoenix had remained in place throughout the day, keeping a close eye on them all, though he still failed to see why his master was so interested in Danny, especially since to Phoenix, it only seemed as if he knew how to use his powers for practical jokes.

Danny had remained mostly oblivious to his presence although there were times when he felt as if he was being watched. He passed it off though as pure paranoia, spawned from his conversation with Sam earlier in the day.

It was late at night now, around 2:30 in the morning, actually. Everyone was asleep in their rooms in the rental beach house.

Danny's eyes snapped open, and he jolted up his bed, drenched in cold sweat. He sat there for a few minutes, taking in breaths in the form of panting, blinking his eyes rapidly.

Danny's nightmares had never stopped plaguing him. He figured he might have them for the rest of his life, no matter how much he tried to put the events of The Institute out of his mind. His sub-conscious didn't seem to want him to forget.

"Ugh..." Danny moaned, flopping back down on his bed, his azure eyes scanning the ceiling above him. He let out a long sigh, recovering from the initial horror of awakening. Lately, his nightmares had gotten a lot more violent and gruesome, and it honestly un-nerved him a bit. They were starting to dip into things that Danny really, really didn't want to remember.

He closed his eyes, trying to get back to sleep, but found that he was unable too. That, too, was getting more common. He let out another sigh and got up from his bed, scratching his head a bit as he decided to head downstairs for a midnight snack to help him take his mind off of things.

"Mom?" He blinked, pausing on the stairs, looking down. Sitting on the couch was none other than his mother, dressed in her nightgown still, sitting on the couch, flipping through a photo album. She looked up when Danny called her, looking slightly surprised to see that he was up as well. She smiled then.

"Couldn't sleep, Danny?" She asked. Danny shrugged his shoulders, and Maddie's smile widened a bit. "I couldn't either. Your father forgot to bring the medication for his snoring, and I forgot to bring my ear plugs."

"Huh..." Danny said. He looked down at the photo album in his mother hands, frowning slightly. "What are you looking at?"

Maddie looked down at the book. "Oh, just some old photo albums. I brought them with me thinking I could do some scrapbooking." She motioned to more recent photographs scattered on the coffee table.

Danny moved over to the table and picked up one of the photographs on it. This one in particular featured himself and Sam. He remembered when his mother had taken it. It was about four days after the battle with May, so both of them were wearing bandages, though Danny had a full amount more than Sam. She had caught them signing each other casts, something that had amused the older woman greatly. Danny hadn't even noticed that she was taking a picture until after the flash had gone off.

Maddie smiled up at her son, taking a moment to look over him. She took a lot of those moments lately. She was so paranoid about losing him again, just like everyone else was. He had changed so much over the four year lapse, but Maddie could still recognize the same fourteen year old boy that had gone missing. He had been mixed up with a lot of other things, but he was still there. It was obvious whenever he was around his friends, playing juvenile pranks, poking light-hearted fun at Tucker and others, such as his ghost friend Mori.

Maddie was at first rather apprehensive about meeting Danny's two ghost friends, Mori and Nazami. She was, however, grateful for what they had done with for her son. She had heard from Sam that apparently when Danny had first become a demigiest, he was actually quite feral. Apparently, his time with the ghostly couple had helped restore as much of his sanity as he was ever going to regain.

Once Maddie meet Danny's friends, however, her apprehension vanished. Despite being ghosts, they were both very nice people, and it was quite apparent how deep their love for each other was. Maddie wasn't quite sure about the story behind their deaths, but she suspected that they both had been quite tragic. She did, however, wish they would stop making out in the middle of a conversation. The two could get quite distracted by each other.

"I remember this." Danny said, waving the photo slightly, before he placed it back down at the coffee table. "You know, it's really annoying the way you sneak up on us with the camera." He said, shooting a slight annoyed look at his mother.

Maddie laughed. "Well, Danny, you think you would be able to notice, with those ears of yours." The ghost huntress reached up, tugging lightly on the pointed end of one. "Funny, you only seem to have lapses in your hearing when you're around Sam, though."

"Yeah, well that's because she's very distracting." Danny said, rather bluntly. His bluntness, of course, made his mother laugh. Danny stared at her, blinking, confused. "Uh... Are you okay?"

"I'm... fine... Danny..." Maddie choked out between fits of laughter. Sometimes her son's blunt honesty about the most peculiar things just seemed so silly, especially when one contrasted it to how secretive he was about everything else. He was unafraid to admit he was completely obsessed with Sam, though it was more because he didn't see anything odd about it, but he wouldn't even say the slightest thing about The Institute besides what everyone already knew.

But regardless of his obsession with Sam and his more secretive nature, she was glad that he was back at long last. Those four years of waiting had been like torture for her. Not a day went by that she didn't hope that Danny would reappear, or that she would wind up with an announcement that his corpse had been found. He had changed yes, but that was allright.

Some people, however, were not glad to see Danny return, Sam's parents being the fore runners. If they had hated Danny before, they only hated him more now. Maddie hated to think what would happen if they actually found out that her son was an insane ghost hybrid, and furthermore, that he was the same ghost who had temporarily kidnapped their daughter. Maddie imagined that they would never let Sam see Danny again. Of course, that wouldn't go over very well with Danny, and he might even wind up kidnapping Sam again. That was how his logic tended to work.

"Hey, is that Jazz?" Danny asked, looking down at the book that his mother had in her lap. Maddie looked down at the photo that Danny was pointing at and smiled. In the photo was a very young Jazz, about three years old. Held carefully in her arms was a small bundle of a baby, and Jazz looked very proud of the fact that she was able to hold the baby.

"Yes. And you too, as a baby." Maddie said, a smile forming when a blush formed on Danny's face. The ghost hybrid quickly shook his head, banishing the blush, hopefully before his mother saw it. Maddie had, of course, but she said nothing of it. "This was a few days after I brought you home from the hospital. Jazz was begging me so much to let her hold you. She was so happy to have a little brother. Although she did originally want a little sister..." Maddie said, trailing off, remembering.

"...If I was a girl, that would be really creepy." Danny mumbled. Maddie laughed again, her white teeth flashing in a large smile. Danny blinked at her, confused about what she thought was so funny. He was serious! It really would have been creepy!

"Oh, Danny..." Maddie said, laughing and shaking her head. "Sometimes..." She didn't finish her sentence, however, instead opting to turn a page in the scrapbook. "Look." She said, pointing down at a photograph. "This is from your first birthday party, do you remember? It was a few months after you had first met Tucker."

"Forget Tucker, where are the photos of Sam as a kid? I bet she was an adorable kid, too." Danny said. Maddie laughed a bit again, shaking her head. She flipped forward a few pages, until around when Danny had been four. One of the first photos was of Danny, Tucker, and their new friend Sam together in a sandbox. Tucker was crying besides them because he had gotten sand in his pants, and Danny and Sam were trying to get him to stop crying.

"Hey, I remember that!" Danny said, a sudden grin flashing on his face. "Tucker eventually stopped crying when he decided that the problem could be solved by taking off his pants. And then Sam smacked him on the head and then ran off, because she was embarrassed."

Maddie laughed, remembering that as well. Danny had gotten so angry at Tucker for chasing away his new friend that he had taken Tucker's pants and put them on his head. That was when Maddie and Mrs. Foley had returned to the scene. Neither of them knew quite what to make of it.

Maddie once again found herself looking at her son. Her eyes fell upon his most recent scar, the rather nasty one he had gotten from May's psi blast. Just looking at it up close made her wince, and she couldn't imagine how Danny was able to bear the pain of it for so long during the fight. Without thinking, she moved her hand away from the scrapbook and placed it as lightly as she could on the scar.

Danny winced, the already constant burning sensation that the scar produced intensifying as his mother touched it. Maddie quickly snatched her hand back. "Oh, Danny, I'm so sorry!" She apologized. "I didn't realize it still hurt you so much..."

Danny shook his head, the burning sensation subsiding back unto a level he could bear. "It's allright. I can handle it. I've been in worse pain."

"I'm sorry for that too..." She said quietly, her violet eyes meeting with his azure ones. Danny looked away, for some reason the sympathy of those around him made him feel almost selfish. He didn't really think he deserved that much attention, as he did still have some self-hate issues. They weren't on the level they were before his return to Amity Park, but they were, of course, still there.

"Don't be. It's not your fault. It was my own stupid mistake that lead me to run away in the first place. I should have known better." There were times when Danny really wished that he could turn back the hands of time, making it so that he had never chosen to flee. He wondered what he would be like if he hadn't. Certainly much more sane than he was now. He would most likely still be naive, still seeing the good in the world easier than the bad.

And most importantly, he wouldn't be a murderer. That was one of those things that Danny really didn't like to think about.

Maddie, though not knowing the specifics of Danny's thoughts, could still see the hurt written into every aspect of her son's face. "Danny, you know I will always love you, no matter what you are, or who you become, right? I will never, ever abandon you. You will _always _be my precious son." She said, placing down her scrapbook, and getting up, embracing her son.

Danny blinked, surprised by the sudden tenderness. No matter how many times his parents said that they loved him, it still surprised the hell out of him. He had been told for so long that they never would, and so he had simply come to accept it. He was still struggling with the concept that they would care for him no matter what. Based off of the logic that had been forced down his throat for the past three years, it seemed just so impossible.

"Always?" He asked, knowing that he must have sounded really stupid.

"Always." Maddie repeated. "Always and a day."

"...thank you." It was the only thing that Danny could think to say. And it was all he really needed too.

* * *

The watching eyes were angry. They were very, _very _angry. Phoenix was seated by the window outside of the Fenton's rented beach house. It was dark, and so the only thing on could really see about the dark-cloaked teen was the mis-matched yellow eyes.

He was listening very carefully to the conversation between Maddie and Danny. Two stray veins from each hands had detached from his skin, working their way through cracks in the house, carrying the vibrations of the sounds inside to them, which he sorted into the sounds of their conversation. It wasn't a foolproof system, and some words were out of order or jumbled up, but he still got enough of it through to understand.

He gritted his teeth in anger, his eyes narrowed. "Why the hell does he get the wonderful family, huh? That freaking punk doesn't deserve the likes..." He muttered, bitterness coating every word that he spoke. "And he takes them all for granted too! Yelling at them, and telling them off! Where does he get off?" He practically hissed.

The fact that his master had ordered him to capture Danny Fenton no longer mattered to him. He would capture him still, yes, but he would do it the way he wanted too. He would make the undeserving ingrate suffer, until it got to the point that he would beg to be safely away from the humans and in his master's hands.


	3. Brother and Sister

AN: Yay, chapter three! Not much action in this one, and Phoenix is noticeably absent. He's probably off plotting evil somewhere. Sorry this chapter took so long to write, but you know, finals and papers and stuff. The good news is, that it's now the end of my school year! And hopefully I passed all my classes... Cause that would suck if I haven't. Wish me luck on my report card, okay?

Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Butch Hartman. And he won't sell it to me.

Wanted

Chapter Three: Brother and Sister

"Rise and shine, Danny!"

Twenty-year old Jasmine Fenton shouted, yanking the covers off her younger brother. Today was the day of their vacation that she had been waiting for, the one day that she had managed to get Danny to agree to spend with her.

Danny grumbled and turned over, away from the insane chipper aura that his sister was producing. He wanted to sleep, dammnit, not be with his sister! He knew he had agreed that he would spend the day with her today, but he didn't mean that it would start _this _early!

Jazz frowned. "If you don't get up, I'll use the Fenton Fisher to drag you downstairs until you do." She threatened. That was usually one of the things she could do to get him to respond to her in the way she wanted. She was sometimes jealous at how easily Sam could get Danny to listen to her. Well, about some things at least. Sam still couldn't get Danny to stop embarrassing her every three seconds.

As she expected him to, Danny jolted up from his sleeping position, shooting an evil glare at Jazz. She simply smiled at him. "Well, now that you're up, you better get cleaned up. I made breakfast this time."

Danny grumbled some more, running a hand through his shaggy white-streaked black hair, but he got up from bed, and headed into the guest house bathroom. Jazz watched him go in, smiling slightly. Danny wasn't exactly a morning person, as could be evidenced by the times in the morning when he was too lazy to actually open the bathroom door-instead, he just phased through the wall.

She shook her head then, heading downstairs into the kitchen, pulling out some plates from the cabinet and setting the table. She had fried up some bacon and made some scrambled eggs. While cooking wasn't her speciality, she could at least make decent meals, which was more than could be said for either Danny or his father. Apparently, the ability to blow up the toaster by just turning it on was genetic.

Danny came down several minutes later, his hair still dripping wet. His eyes lit up as he saw what was on his plate. He flopped down in the kitchen chair, picking up a piece of bacon and putting it into his mouth, chewing on it.

"So, Danny did you have anything special in mind today?" Jazz asked, grinning widely at him. She hated to admit it, but she hadn't actually had a lot of private re-bonding time with her little brother since he had come home about four months ago. Between finishing college and the volunteer work she had been doing she hadn't had the time. Plus, Danny had spent most of his time either with Sam, getting dragged of by either his parents or Mori and Nazami, and just randomly disappearing from time to time. It was one of the reasons that she was grateful for this vacation.

"Not really..." Danny said, still chewing on one of the bacon pieces, staring up at the ceiling. "Why are you so determined to bond with me anyways, Jazz?" Danny asked, arching an eyebrow. He didn't quite understand why she was so desperate to spend alone time with him. I mean, she saw him every day, wasn't that enough?

It didn't always occur to him that he had lost some of his understanding of humans. He knew, of course, that he had changed. All of his memories of his life when he was a full human were very strange to him, almost surreal, as if he was watching someone else's life, instead of his own.

"Well, I have an idea!" Jazz started to suggest, but Danny cut her off, shooting an annoyed glare at her.

"We're _not _going to the Psychology Museum." He said, predicting what she was planning.

"Damn..." Jazz muttered under her breath, severely disappointed. She really _had _wanted to go there, but she never had liked to go to museums by herself. She always thought that going with someone somehow enhanced the experience, giving you someone to talk to about what was on display. And she wasn't like Danny, who could talk to himself throughout a full-length tour of The Louvre.

"Morning Danny, morning Jazz..." Danny and Jazz both looked up upon the entrance of a tired looking Sam. She was still wearing her black nightgown, and was yawning.

Danny grinned at Sam, titling his head backwards so that he could see her better, even though from this angle she was upside-down. "Morning Sam!"

Jazz, likewise, greeted the tired gothic girl. She was glad that they had been able to convince Sam's parents to let her come with them on their trip to the beach. Tucker's parents had been easy enough, but Sam's parents weren't too keen on the idea of letting her daughter be alone in another state with the Fentons, much less Danny. If they had been nervous about their daughter being around him before, now they were downright panicky.

Sam yawned again, pulling out some orange juice from the fridge and pouring it into a glass. Danny got up from his seat, his breakfast forgotten by the enchanting sight of Sam in her nightgown. He grinned and wrapped his arms around her, putting his head on her shoulder.

"Danny...?" Sam asked, still tired. It took her a few moments before she realized what he was doing, but when she did, she woke up almost instantly, turning a deep shade of beet red. "_DANNY!_" She shouted, trying to shrug him off, but he was stronger than her. "Let go of me!"

"Well, I got you to wake up, didn't I?" Danny asked, grinning at her as he let her go. Sam shot him a glare. "Aw, come on Sam. Don't be like that."

"Then stop hugging me out of the blue!" Sam said, crossing her arms in a huff.

Jazz laughed, watching the two. Sam wouldn't win this argument no matter how much she tried.

She had originally been a bit disturbed at the idea of Danny having an obsession with the girl, and she still was, a little. But she had slowly gotten somewhat used to the idea. She had originally thought May had been lying about what she had said about Danny being a demigiest, so she was stunned when her mother had told her otherwise.

While Danny was still in a semi-comatose state after his battle with May, Jazz and her parents had sat down and discussed with each other exactly what they should do. They were both shocked to learn that Jazz already knew about Danny's unquieness, feeling slightly betrayed that she hadn't told either of them.

She still remembered that conversation like it was yesterday, and she _still _felt guilty for having it behind Danny's back. Her parents had sat her down, starting to explain what had happened to Danny to her. The more Jazz thought about it, the more she became lost in her memory of it, the ongoing conflict between Sam and Danny melting away from her focus.

"...zz..."

"Huh!" Jazz blinked, looking up at Danny who was actually knocking on her forehead, a slightly amused look on his face. "Oh! Danny! I'm sorry, I just..." She stared at him, blinking. "Uh... why is there egg on your head?" She asked, although she already had an idea why.

Danny pulled his hand from her forehead, grinning slightly. "Eh, Sam duped my plate on my head before she stormed out muttering something about..." He paused. "...I forgot."

Jazz laughed then, smiling at her younger brother. He glared at her. "Hey! It's not like you don't forget stuff too!" He shouted, annoyed. Sometimes his sister could _really _get on his nerves.

"I'm sorry, Danny, it's just..." Jazz laughed again, shaking her head. "Oh, nevermind. Just go clean the food off your face."

Danny shrugged, going into the bathroom again to clean the egg off of his head. He took a washcloth out of the cabinet, and pulled off his shirt so he wouldn't get them wet. He brushed the majority of the egg off with the dry towel, placing them inside of the trash can. He then turned on the sinking, soaking the towel, and twisting it to get all of the unnecessary water out. He ran the towel over his hair, sighing slightly.

He tossed the towel on the ground, checking his hair to make sure that there was no stray egg left in it. Upon seeing none, he grinned, shaking his hair slightly to dry it out. He wasn't sure what he had said to Sam to offend her so much. He still didn't understand why she sometimes reacted as she did to some of the things he said. Women were just all weird, he decided, and not even Sam could escape from the hormone-based weirdness.

He marched back downstairs, where Jazz was still waiting. "Okay, got it out." He reported to her.

Jazz smiled at him. "Well, I was thinking about where we should go, but then I decided maybe we should just go for a walk and talk. We do have a lot of catching up to do."

"But walking is boring!" Danny protested. He frowned then. "Then again, it fits _you _perfectly. Do you even know the meaning of the word entertainment?" He asked, arching an eyebrow.

Jazz shot him a look. "Very funny Danny. But we've barely had anytime to really talk, and I want to make up for that loss. Besides, it won't be so boring. We can walk on the beach."

"And what if we get lost?" Danny asked. "It's not exactly like we know where we're going."

"Danny, you can't get lost if you walk in a straight line." Jazz pointed out, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh right. Damn." Danny muttered, half to himself. That hadn't occurred to him. He let out a reluctant sigh. "Fine... I'll walk with you, but then we get to do something _I _want to do, allright?"

"We'll do whatever you like afterwards, Danny." Jazz agreed, smiling. She paused then, blinking. "So long as it doesn't involve you blowing me off to drag Sam someplace."

Danny didn't say anything to that, but from the look on his face Jazz could tell that was exactly what he was thinking of doing. She got up from her chair, and after dumping her leftover breakfast in the trash, she turned back to Danny, who was already halfway out of the door. Jazz frowned and quickly rushed to catch up with him, grabbing one of the pointed tips of his ears, and pulling him back.

"Forgetting something and someone?" She asked, arching an eyebrow. Danny rolled his eyes and headed back upstairs, grabbing his hat and tugging it over the tips of his ears before rejoining his sister downstairs.

"That's better. You really should be more careful, Danny. You don't know if there could be more people like May wandering the streets." Jazz said, upon seeing him come back down.

"If there were more Mays around, the apocalypse would have come already." Danny mumbled and Jazz couldn't help but agree with him.

"You know I only remind you of these things because I love you, right Danny?" Jazz asked, smiling at him as the two headed out the door. "You're my little brother, demigiest or not. I worry about you."

"Yeah, I know..." Danny said, sighing slightly.

Jazz smiled at him. "Come on. It's still early, so there won't be too many people on the beach. You can feel free to tell me anything you want."

"What if I don't want to tell you anything?" Danny asked, arching an eyebrow. He really had no intention on talking to his sister about what she wanted to hear. The Institute, and the things that happened there, were behind him. The head of research was dead, and he didn't understand why everyone who knew about it kept on pushing him on the issue.

"Danny, you have to talk to somebody about it." Jazz said, sighing. "I know you think the whole thing is behind you already, but it's still eating at you inside, isn't it?" She asked, looking worriedly at her brother. "You won't talk to anyone about it anymore, not even Sam."

"It doesn't bother me anymore!" Danny said, glaring irritably at his sister. "I'm over it. May's dead, I'm not. End of story."

"A story that we hardly know anything about!" Jazz looked at Danny, her eyes almost pleading. "There's this whole four year gap between us, and you don't seem to be willing to let any of us into it! There's so much about you we don't know about anymore, and it really hurts us that you don't seem to trust us!"

There it was. Everything that Jazz had been feeling over the past four months, exploding out at once. She felt like she was the patient now, instead of the psychologist. It was a disorienting feeling for someone used to being in the role of the advisor, but she needed to say these things. She needed to let Danny hear how she felt. She couldn't exactly go trying to force him to talk, and then keep her own feeling bottled up inside, now could she? _That _would be hypocritical.

Danny sighed deeply, looking at Jazz. He could see she was upset, but he didn't understand why. He _couldn't_ understand why. "Listen, Jazz, it's nothing personal or anything. It's not because I don't trust you guys." Danny failed to add that he actually didn't trust them, nor did he trust anyone besides Sam. "It's just because I don't think it's important anymore."

"I think there's more to it than just that, Danny." Jazz said, staring at him directly. "There's some other reason you don't want to talk about it, and I want to let you know that no matter what it is, that I can handle it. I'm your sister, and I love you. Why can't you seem to understand that?"

Danny turned his head away from her, unable to find anyway to answer her question. He _couldn't _tell them. The experiments that were preformed on him weren't so bad, at least not from Danny's jaded, insane perspective, but there was no real way that he could talk about The Institute without getting into the fights. There was no way he could talk about it without mentioning the blood on his hands.

There was a long silence that hung over the two, neither of them moving. Jazz stared at Danny, her expression a mixture of hopefulness and hopelessness. Danny continued to refuse to look at Jazz, trying to maintain a cool exterior, but beating himself up on the inside. There was nothing either could think to say to the other.

Jazz broke the silence, letting out a long sigh. "It can wait, Danny." She said, smiling at him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to push you. It's just..." She started to explain, then stopped, shaking her head. "No, there's no real reason other than the fact that I'm just being selfish. I of all people should know that I have to wait for you to come to terms with whatever happened, and I mean truly come to terms with it, before I can ever hope to hear it from you."

She looked at him then, even though he still wasn't facing her, and smiled kindly. "And you're the only person I'll ever want to hear it from. It wouldn't be right otherwise."

"...Thank you." Danny mumbled quietly, his head still turned. He didn't know what else to say, but he was grateful that Jazz had decided to stop pressing him on the subject. As much as he hated to admit it, he _did _feel guilty for all the pain his continued silence caused his family. But telling them would only bring more pain, wouldn't it?

Jazz smiled at him. "Hey, what are sisters for?"

"For being pains in the ass, duh." Danny said, his mood shifting as he turned to look back at Jazz, smirking slightly. Jazz glared at him, and against her more mature judgement, she picked up a handful of sand from the beach and threw it at him.

"Hey!" Danny shouted, glaring at her. "What was that for?"

"I'm sorry, I thought sisters were _supposed _to be pains in the ass." Jazz said cooly, arching an eyebrow. Danny continued to glare at her. "Awww, come on little bro. I'm just playing with you!" She said, suddenly hugging him, grinning from ear to ear. She decided to put her worried thoughts in the back of her mind. Today was for bonding, and she was going to bond if it killed her! Okay, maybe not killed...

Danny turned intangible, and Jazz found herself falling onto the sand. She let out a little shout from surprise. Danny laughed and stepped away from her, turning tangible again. Jazz looked up at him, spitting some sand that she had managed to get into her mouth out.

"_Danny! _That's not funny!" She shouted, irritated. She pulled herself up from the ground, brushing the sand off of her.

Danny arched an eyebrow. "I don't know, it's pretty funny from this end."

Jazz shot another glare at him. "Besides, what if someone saw you do that! You'd be in big trouble then."

Danny rolled his eyes, sighing. "One, there's no one else out here right now. Two, why the heck would people stare at random strangers. And three, they don't know who we are, so therefore we're in no danger at all." He grinned mischievously at Jazz. "Come on, you have to learn to loosen up about these things Jazz. You're way too tense about them all."

"So you're not afraid of complete strangers learning you're secret, but you were absolutely paranoid of us learning about it?" Jazz asked, arching an eyebrow. Danny nodded and she frowned. "You know Danny, someday I'll find out exactly how that mind of yours works." She said, shaking her head. Even though she was currently in college and working on her degree in Psychology, her brother's thought process _still _baffled her sometimes.

"Yeah, good luck with that one." Danny said, smirking. Jazz couldn't help put think that he was bragging because she couldn't figure him out.

"Keep that attitude up, and we're going to a museum, buster." Jazz said.

Danny stuck out his tongue at her, exposing the silver tongue stud. "Good luck with _that_, sis. In case you haven't noticed, you can't make _me _go anywhere."

"Fenton Thermos." Jazz said simply, arching an eyebrow, her arms crossed in front of her.

Danny's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. "You wouldn't dare." He said cooly. Jazz simply continued to stare at him, her expression never changing. Danny sighed, annoyed. "Okay, fine. I'll behave." _When giant pandas fly. _He added in his head.

Jazz smiled triumphantly. She blinked then. "Hey, Danny, did getting your tongue pierced hurt?" She asked, cocking her head to the side slightly. She blinked again. "When did you get that done?"

Danny shrugged. "It didn't hurt that much. Nazami did it. She used to be a tattoo artist before she died, you know. She did piercings as well."

Jazz stared at him, surprised. "You're kidding." She didn't know Danny's ghost friend very well, but she didn't exactly peg her for the type to have those kinds of jobs. Then again, judging from her husband's strangeness, maybe she shouldn't have been surprised. After all, what kind of respectable doctor smoked?

"Nope." Danny replied. "So, are we just going to stand around here all day, or are we actually going to go and do something? Casue there's this awesome horror movie out that I want to see, come to think of it."

Jazz stared at him. "Danny, you've seen every horror movie that's come out at least twice."

Danny shrugged. "Eh. You know what they say. Third time's the charm, or something like that anyways. I think that's right though, but I could be wrong, because I'm not exactly an expression expert, nor would I want to be. I don't even know if such a thing exists, but there are some weird people out there, so I guess it might be possible..." He frowned, unaware that he was talking to himself again.

Jazz sighed. Someday she would find out how her brother's mind worked. But apparently today was not that day.


	4. The Invitation

AN: Chapter Four! Uh, sorry about the update lag, but I had to re-work some ideas and things. But now I've finally gotten the plot just as I like it! I actually would have written this chapter soon, but Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon episodes on YouTube distracted me. Curse you, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and your bizaree addictiveness! (shakey fist) Anyshways, please enjoy the show! ...er, fanficition. Same difference.

Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Butch Hartman. Phoenix, as well as the concept of demigiests and this fanfiction, however, do. So yes. But I'm not making any money off of this!

* * *

Wanted

Chapter Four: The Invitation

Almost as soon as Jazz and Danny had re-entered their rental vacation home, they were greeted by their father, a large grin on his face. It appeared as if he had just gotten off the phone, since it was still in his hands.

"Hey, kids, guess what!" The large man said excitedly. He didn't give them a chance to make a guess, already excitedly prattling on. "We just got a phone call from an old friend of mine in college! He's staying in town tonight, and he wants us to come and eat with him tonight! Isn't that exciting?" He asked, eagerly.

Jazz and Danny moaned. They had heard tales from their father's college days, and none of them were pretty.

"Do we _have _to?" Danny asked. "There's no way you're going to get me to sit at some table all day and listen to all of you go on about... whatever it is that old people go on about."

Jack blinked a few times. "We have to listen to you when you talk to yourself." He pointed out.

Danny shot him a look. "That's different! At least I'm entertaining!"

Jazz sighed, shaking her heads. Sometimes it was hard for her to tell which of the two was the more childish. To be honest, she wasn't particularity looking forward to the dinner, but it probably wouldn't be that bad. "Who is your friend, dad?" She asked, only mildly curious. She heard her brother mumbling about who cares under his breath, but she ignored him, smiling at her father.

"My old best buddy in college, Vlad! Vlad Masters." Jack declared. He frowned then, tilting his head slightly in thought. "Although we haven't spoken since college. He seems mad at me for some reason, but I don't know why... Maybe it's because I accidentally caused him to get a horrible case of ecto-acne..." He mumbled, rubbing his chin.

Jazz eye's shot up in surprise. "Vlad Masters? _The _Vlad Masters? Currently the richest man in America? _That _Vlad Masters?"

"Well, Jazzarincess, I'm not sure there are very many more Vlad Masters." Jack said.

"Who's Vlad Masters?" Danny asked, half-looking up at his father, and half-playing with the white streak in his bangs. He was clearly incredibly bored by the conversation.

Despite her growing excitement, Jazz didn't fail to notice the fact that her brother was actually staying during a boring conversation, and not just walking away from it like he usually did. Maybe he really _was _getting better.

"Didn't you just hear Jazzy-pants going on about him about five seconds ago?" Jack asked.

"Nope." Danny answered simply, twisting the streaked bang around his finger.

"Well, he was my old pal in college, and right now he's the richest man in America!" Jack declared. "Eeee-yup. Back in college, he, I, and your mother were inseparable! We were quite the popular crowd, you know!" He laughed. Jazz and Danny exchanged a look, both of them wondering if their father actually believed that, or if he was just saying it. Most likely, he really believed it.

"Huh. So that's why his name sounded familiar..." Danny mumbled under his breath. "Can Sam and Tucker come too?" He asked, un-twisting the white bang from around his finger. "Because I'm not going if Sam's not coming."

"Don't you mean you're not going if Sam _and _Tucker aren't coming?" Jazz questioned, eyeing her brother.

Danny stared blankly at her. "No, I mean I'm not coming if Sam's not coming." He said. "Tucker's nice to have around, but he's not necessary. Just Sam."

"Don't you think that's just a little bit unfair to Tucker?" Jazz asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No, not really." Danny answered flatly, his bored azure eyes meeting with her aqua ones. "Why would it be?" He asked.

Jazz sighed, shaking her head slightly and turning back to her father. Maybe she had been wrong about him getting better. _I have to try to do something about his ghost-like obsession with Sam. _She thought to herself. Realizing what she had just said, she slapped her forehead. _I can't believe I'm taking the existence of ghosts so casually right now. Why couldn't I just have normal parents? Then none of this would be happening right now..._ She thought, glancing at Danny, who had resumed playing with his hair, waiting for an answer to his question.

Jack beamed. "Of course they can come! I'm sure Vladdie is eager to meet all of you! And as for me, I'm just glad after all these years, he's finally decided to forgive me... even though I've never done anything at all to wreck his life!" He let out a laugh then, although for what reason, nobody could be sure.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Right. If anyone needs me, I'll be with Sam." He said, already moving towards the stairs as he spoke. He stopped and turned back. "Which means if you need me, then you don't." He finished, before turning back around and heading up the stairs and into the bedroom that Sam was staying in.

Jazz looked back towards her father after watching Danny casually phase through Sam's door. "Are you sure it's a good idea to bring him?" She asked. "I mean, he's not exactly the formal dinner type..."

"Of course I'm sure!" Jack said. "I'm sure Danny will be on his best behavior!" The large man paused then, thinking. "But just in case, maybe I should bring the Fenton Thermos... we wouldn't want to have a repeat of what happened when your Aunt Alicia came to visit... even if it _was _funny..."

Jazz groaned. She could already tell that tonight was going to be a _long _night.

* * *

"So let me get this straight..." Sam said slowly. "We're going to eat dinner with the richest man in America?"

"That your father was best friends with in college?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, that's about it." Danny said, leaning back in one of the chair's in Sam's rental room. Much to his annoyance, almost as soon as he had come to see Sam, Tucker had joined them as well. Sometimes Danny thought that Tucker had some sort of special sense that told him when it was time for him to go and be a third wheel.

Sam chewed thoughtfully on her lip, sitting cross-legged on her bed. "Well, I guess I could come. It's not like I really had anything else planned." She said, smiling. "Besides, if it keeps us from going to another rib shack, I'm all for it." She added, with a look of pure disgust.

"Hey, what's wrong with barbecue?" Tucker asked, sounding offended.

"It's meat, Tucker. And meat was once a living creature." Sam shot back at him.

"Yeah, well so were the plants you eat." Tucker shot back, half-glaring at the Goth girl. He looked back at his raven-haired friend. "Come on Danny, back me up on this one!"

Danny gave him an amused look. "I'm with Sam." He said.

Sam shot a triumphant look at the techno nerd. Maybe there was some advantage to having a boyfriend that was completely obsessed with you after all-as long as he was around, you would always be right. Tucker should have known better than to ask him, but he was still having trouble getting used to the... stronger feelings that Danny had for her.

"What?" Tucker asked, stunned. "But you love barbecue!" He yelled. "And just the other day, you used a package of brussel sprouts for target practice since you said it wasn't good for anything else!"

"Well for one thing, I don't love barbecue so much that I'd want to eat it every day, like you and dad." Danny began, holding up one of his fingers. "And two," he said, a second finger joining his first. "If Sam says it, she's right."

"What if I said that I didn't belong to you?" Sam offered, hopefully. That was the downside of having a boyfriend who was completely obsessed with you-the fact that he was completely obsessed with you.

"Except for that." Danny said, putting down his hand, smirking at her. Sam shot him a glare, but the demigiest merely gave her one of those looks.

Tucker looked between the two, feeling incredibly awkward at the moment. It was quite a strange relationship that the three of them had resumed since Danny's return to Amity Park. The techno nerd had started to feel more and more like a third wheel whenever he, Sam, and Danny were together. He knew that Danny didn't hate him, because the raven-haired teen was perfectly fine with hanging out with him when Sam was busy, or wasn't around. He also knew about Danny's obsession, as well as his altered nature.

There were times when he wished that everything could go back to the way it used to be before Danny had ran away. He wondered what it would have been like if the ghost hybrid had decided to stay, instead of running away to be captured by ghost hunters, and tortured and manipulated until he had become a demigiest.

Like she had with Jazz, Danny's mother had sat them down with them one day while Jazz, under Maddie's instructions, had dragged Danny out of the house to go shopping for some new outfits. It was in part because all of his old clothing had out-grown him, and in part so that he wouldn't be around to hear them talking about him. Maddie didn't think her son would take it well to know that they had been having private chats about him, and honestly, she felt guilty about even having them in the first place. But in the end, they were necessary.

Tucker also knew that his mother had alternate chats with Mr. Lancer, Principal Ishiyama, and his and Sam's parents. She had even gone out of her way to go and apologize in Danny's stead to Dash's parents.

The African-American teenager glanced over at Danny, who was currently engaged in his and Sam's usual argument. There was no real malice in their argument, at least not anymore. He knew that they both still held their individual stances firmly, but this had just become another thing that they did.

Sometimes Tucker wondered if Danny was grateful at all for all the work his family had done for him to make his transition back into a semi-normal lifestyle as easy as possible. He hated to admit it, but sometimes it didn't seem like it, especially since after Maddie and Jack had done so much work to get Danny back into school, he continued to either cause problems there, or just not show up at all. Not to mention that he had ultimately failed it.

Tucker missed the times from before Danny had vanished. He remembered how excited the three of them had been on the first day of high school. It wasn't long after that that Danny had had the accident, and fled. There were some things that were still the same-they were all still friends, but more things had changed. Casual conversation didn't seem to interest the raven-haired boy anymore, and half of the time, he would stop talking to them to talk to himself.

Tucker had to wonder just what had happened to Danny in The Institute. He knew that Sam knew something, but she wasn't telling him anything, most likely out of respect for Danny's privacy. Tucker suspected that even she didn't know the whole story.

One of these days, he was going to ask him about it.

"Tucker!" Sam's shout broke his thoughts. He blinked, looking over towards her. "Tell Danny that he's wrong." She instructed.

Tucker's mouth twisted into an amused smile. "Danny, whatever you two are arguing about, you're right." He said.

Sam stuck her tongue out at him. "Okay, now you're just mocking me because of earlier, aren't you?"

"Yeah, pretty much." The techno nerd said. "So, are we going to this dinner or not?" He asked, looking at the two. "We never really decided if we would or not."

"Didn't you hear Sam say that she's going?" Danny asked, cocking his head towards Sam. "That's what we were just arguing about."

"Oh, right." Tucker said. When had their argument changed from Danny's possessive nature to the diner? He had to listen to these things better. "I guess I'll come to."

"Yep." Danny said, a slight smirk forming on his face. "And thanks to you, I don't have to wear those stupid dress clothes Jazz bought me."

"I thought you said I was always right." Sam looked at Danny. There were times when she loved how he contradicted himself. In some ways, the fact that he would never admit he was wrong was actually somewhat cute.

"About everything except for the fact that you're not mine, and dress clothes." Danny added onto her sentence.

* * *

"You're inviting them over for dinner?"

Phoenix looked over towards his master from where he stood, leaning against the wall of his study. One of his eyebrows was raised, and it almost made it appear as if his eyes were placed normally.

The mutant had been instructed to remain at the house that day, much to his annoyance. He was hoping to get started on what he was assigned to do, and he didn't like being held up, even by his Master. He knew his Master had arrived, but he only suspected that he would just be there to keep a closer eye on the proceedings. He could be a very suspicious man at times.

"But of course." His master said, placing down the book he was reading. He looked over towards Phoenix, his blue eyes meeting with the mutant's distorted yellow ones. "You see, this way makes taking everything that Jack has ever known from him even sweeter. You should understand about that."

Phoenix smirked, needing no words to tell him how much he understood. He knew about his master's hatred of his former friend Jack Fenton, and he could somewhat understand it. No matter what it's causes, revenge was always a dish better when it was served with a heaping plate of deception and manipulation. "And what do you want me to do while this is going on?" He asked.

"Why, you're going to join me, of course." The white-haired man said.

Phoenix cocked an eyebrow. "When you bought me from the Lady Bitch, I didn't get the impression that you were stupid." He said, pulling out a blue-veined hand from underneath the folds of his cloak. "I think that even Jack Fenton would notice these."

Vlad gave him an amused smile, one that said that he knew something that he didn't. Phoenix's eyebrow twitched at it. There were few people that Phoenix couldn't read, and Vlad Masters was one of them. It was one of the few reasons why the man had managed to keep the mutant tamed and under his control for so long. There also other reasons, of course, but those were far more painful ones, and Phoenix preferred not to think about what the man could do when he truly got angry.

The millionaire got up from his chair and walked over towards the safe that he had hidden in the room, behind a section of false books. Placing his hand against a scanner on the side, he tapped in the access code, standing in front of the panel so that the mutant couldn't see the combination. The safe beeped once, then opened, allowing him to reach inside and take out a jar containing a thick, slimy looking yellow liquid and a syringe. He turned around, looking over with amusement at the raven-haired mutant.

"Oh, you won't have to worry about that."


	5. Vlad Masters

**AN**: Chapter Five! Huzzah! (cheering breaks out) HAhahha. Anyways. I was originally going to take the actual dinner onto this chapter, but when I thought about it, I realized that it would make this chapter way too long. Besides, I like that ending. It gives cause to cue the dramatic music, and that's always tons of fun. And Danny now has a new outfit! Huzzah! I need to draw it sometime.

Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Butch Hartman. The concept of demigiests, and this fanfiction belong to me however. Steal them and I will not rest until you've been punished in the name of the moon.

* * *

Wanted

Chapter Five: Vlad Masters

"Daniel Fenton..." Maddie Fenton began coldly, her arms crossed as she stared cooly at her son. "I do hope you don't plan on going to the dinner at Vlad's home wearing that."

"Yeah, actually." The lanky teen said, arching an eyebrow, sticking his hands in his pockets. "What's the problem?"

Maddie let out a long sigh, placing a hand on her forehead. There were times when her son could give her headaches the size of Mount Rushmore. She removed her hand from her forehead, casting her violet eyes over her son's clothing. "I thought Jazz bought you some dress clothes."

"Yeah, but who wants to wear a tie?" Danny asked, cocking an eyebrow, a half-smirk on his face. In place of his dress clothes, he wore a pair of black and gray camouflage styled cargo pants, a black tank top, and a sleeveless black leather trenchcoat. His outfit was finished off by his usual combat boots, hat, and gloves. Maddie could only begin to imagine where he had gotten the clothes from.

"Danny, even your father changed for this." Maddie said, motioning towards her husband, who was wearing a dress shirt and tie. He was currently scratching away at his forearms, muttering something about getting a rash on them because they were so unprotected. The red-head woman shook her and looked back at her son. "Everyone is in formal wear except for you."

"It's not even worth bothering with Mrs. Fenton. I already tried, and he wouldn't even listen to me." A voice from the top of the stairs said. Danny and his mother turned, looking upwards at the Goth girl standing there. She was wearing a long, sleeveless, black dress with a thin violet jacket. Her hair was up in a french twist, and she had changed out of her combat boots for black and violet sandals.

Danny let out a low whistle, cocking an eyebrow, his usual amused grin appearing on his face. His grin widened further as he noticed the faint blush appearing on Sam's face. "I thought I'd never get you to dress that way again." He remarked, which brought, as he desired, an even deeper blush.

"Well, I'm _not _dressing like this for you!" Sam said, walking down the stairs, shooting a nasty look at the demigiest.

This, however, only caused his look of amusement to grow, his grin growing wider, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Hn. Well, either way, the point is is that you look beautiful." He uncrossed his arms and closed the distance between them, getting behind her and wrapping his arms around her. He nibbled lightly on a stray strand of hair, his breath hot on her throat. "_Very _beautiful."

Sam flushed a dark red color, trying to shake the demigiest off of her. But regardless of how much she tried, he was simply just too much stronger than she was. She cast a pleading look over in Maddie's direction, noticing with deep embarrassment that the older woman had also reddened slightly from the way Danny was handling her.

"Danny..." Maddie begin, coughing slightly to cover up her blush. "Please give Sam her space. We're about to leave."

Danny cast a look at his mother, frowning, but he obliged, for once, letting go of the raven-haired girl. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked around to her front side, planting a quick kiss on Sam's lips before he headed outside the house. Sam, still blushing deeply, composed herself, and followed Maddie outside, with Jack following behind her. Jazz and Tucker were already outside waiting for them.

"Geez Sam, you look like someone feed you a bag full of hot peppers." Tucker commented, taking in Sam's still-red face. His eyes trailed slowly over to Danny, who stared blankly back at him. Tucker's eyes went back to Sam, a look of understanding washing over his face. "Ohhhh... That's why."

"Everyone, gather up in the Fenton Family Assau-I mean, the RV." Maddie announced, correcting herself halfway through their RV's full title-The Fenton Family Assault Vehicle, which conveniently became a simple RV whenever Maddie felt it was better suited.

One by one the four Fentons and their guests piled into the RV, Jack and Maddie entering last to take their places in the front seats. Maddie opted to drive, knowing that Jack's style of driving might not be the best choice for this situation. Generally speaking, getting tickets for reckless driving while on vacation and on their way to eat dinner with America's richest citizen was something that just wasn't considered socially acceptable.

"So, what is Mr. Masters like?" Jazz asked, a hint of eagerness could be heard in her voice. She couldn't help but admit that she was just a little excited about meeting the richest man in America. She bet that someone of his status had all kinds of stories to tell, not to mention some helpful finical tips. She would need them now that she was halfway through college and had no intention of living with her parents forever.

"Well, back in college, I recall him being a big fan of the Greenbay Packers." Jack began, a distant look in his eyes as he began to reminiscence. "We first met each other at college. We were roomies! Originally he didn't have much of an interest in ghosts, but when I asked for his help in building a prototype of the ghost portal with Maddie, he almost instantly agreed to help!" He let out a slight laugh, though no one was exactly sure why he was laughing.

"Yeep... He's a great guy, let me tell you that. We were inseparable, all three of us!" He smiled warmly at his wife. "If it weren't for him, I might have never met your lovely mother. He was the one who introduced us!"

Maddie smiled. "Vlad and I went to high school together. I had no idea that we'd be going to the same college as him though until I ran into him in the cafeteria at the beginning of my first semester there."

"Yeeep. But then when we finally finished the proto-portal, it malfunctioned and gave him a horrible, horrible case of ecto-acne. Didn't clear up until we were all out of college!" Jack said. "And for some reason he blamed me for it..." He mumbled, sounding upset.

"You already told us about that one dad." Jazz smiled at her father. "Anyways, I'm sure he's forgiven you by now, if this invitation is any indication. You can't stay mad at someone forever."

She frowned then, looking at Danny from the corner of her eye, the memories of the brief time she had spent kidnapped and held in Danny's old cell flashing back to her mind, along with the writing on the wall. "Well, maybe you can. But I'm sure he's forgiven you!"

"You two made a prototype of the ghost portal?" Tucker asked, curious. "And the real one still messed up and nearly blasted Danny to kingdom come?" He asked, looking at his friend across the seat, who shot him an annoyed look. Sam was sitting in between the two of them, trying to resist the urge to yank on both of their ears if they started fighting again.

"That portal didn't malfunction, we just forgot to turn it on." Maddie pointed out, wanting to look back but knowing that would be an incredibly stupid thing to do while she was driving. "It's our fault for living the machine plugged in though. We should have remembered to unplug it before we went off to mope."

Strangely enough, Danny didn't seem to have a problem when they talked about the Ghost Portal, or even the accident that had caused him to become half-ghost, around him. The only subject that he seemed to be really touchy on was The Institute, as well as it's sadistic young head, a woman by the name of May Clayborne.

Maddie was never quite sure why talk of the Portal accident didn't un-nerve him as much as talk of The Institute. She would have thought that the two would have been directly linked in his mind. But then again, nobody was quite sure how Danny's mind worked anymore.

_Come to think of it, nobody seems to know exactly how a demigiest's mind works. _Maddie thought, frowning. After the battle with May, she had spent countless hours gathering every piece of information on demigiests that she could find. She had even resorted to speculation posted over paranormal activity boards on the Internet, using what she knew as fact as a basis to try and help determine what was logical or not.

But as much as she searched, she was held down by the fact that not that many people even knew about demigiests. And even those who did, they were only just beginning to delve into their mysteries. Everyone knew that they were closest to vengeful sprits and poltergeists, but nobody was sure just _how _close.

Most ghost researchers simply believed that things like demigiests couldn't possibly exist. Ordinary ghosts simply didn't get more powerful than vengeful spirits. Maddie couldn't help but think part of the reasoning for that was fear. After all, when even a low level vengeful spirit could cause mass hysteria, then one could only begin to imagine what a low level demigiest could do.

Demigiests, up until recently for Maddie, had just been speculation. She had always believed them to be possible, but there were really no real instances of demigiests in the world. Many of the potential demigiest cases turned out to be ones of high level vengeful spirit activity, or low level poltergeist activity. Danny very well might be the only one of his kind in existence.

The ghost huntresses couldn't shake how disturbing that thought was. He was her son, and in the end she would always, always love him, but she worried about him now more than ever. Not only because he was regularly displaying that the sanity he once held was now gone, but for other reasons as well. The sheer lack of knowledge terrified her, and she hated to admit that it did.

There were so many questions that were plaguing her. What if there were diseases that demigiests could get that other ghosts couldn't? She knew ghosts could get sick, she had seen it and read about it. What if the reason that nobody ever found any demigiests before was because that ultimately the state they're in causes their energy all to burn out? She knew that Danny was part human as well, but there were times when she couldn't help but wonder just how much of him actually _was _still human.

What if they all eventually became full-blown poltergeists?

That thought disturbed Maddie the most. If that happened then there would be almost no way for them to get him back. The mere thought of it terrified Maddie more than anything, because she knew that in the end it very well might be her who would have to stop him. And she _never _wanted that to happen.

She had shared some of her fears with her husband, though not all of them. She knew that Jack loved Danny just as much as before, but she also knew of the man's knack for jumping to erroneous conclusions. She knew he was a bit more paranoid than her when it came to ghosts, it most likely came from the fact that he had grown up in a full family of ghost hunters. She had to constantly talk him out of inviting a way to purge the ghost half from their son's body-she simply didn't know if Danny would be able to take being separated from it.

"Mom? Hey Mom!" Jazz's voice broke Maddie from her thoughts and she shook her head, wondering how long she had been lost in thought.

"Yes, sweetie?" She asked, eyeing her red-headed daughter slightly.

"You missed the turn." Jazz said, arching an eyebrow. Her mother was usually an excellent driver, unless she let her mind wander, which she had obviously been doing.

Maddie flushed a deep shade of scarlet. "Whoops! Guess I was just getting lost in my college memories!" She laughed, before she pulled into the nearest driveway and turned around, heading back in the right direction. She knew that Jazz probably wasn't fooled by that excuse-she was too smart. She would have to speak with her sometime. If anyone in this family could help figure out Danny, it was her.

There was mostly idle chatter in the RV after that. Tucker and Danny were arguing about something as usual, and Sam was trying to mediate. Jazz had whipped out a notepad-from where, no one was quite sure- and jotting down some notes. Jack went on babbling about his glory days, even though nobody was really listening and Maddie was trying not to miss anymore turns. In about seventeen more minutes, they had arrived at Vlad's home.

Excuse me, I meant mansion.

"We're eating here?" Tucker got out, staring wide-eyed at the mansion. Even Maddie had to admit she was impressed. For a vacation home, the place was _huge_.

"Looks like it..." Sam said, staring. Even she had to be impressed by the size of the mansion. She had seen some before, at any of the numerous social functions that her parents had dragged her along on. But she had never really seen one this large-and it was just his vacation home? Apparently, the tittle of the richest man in America wasn't just all hype.

Maddie drove into the mansion, passing through the gates, which were curiously unattended. She parked the RV in front of the house, the four Fentons and their two guests unloading out of the RV.

Vlad Masters was standing there at the doorstep, waiting for them. His eyes lit up as Maddie stepped out of the car, though he frowned slightly as Jack followed her out. He put on a smile and walked down the steps, greeting them. "Ah, the Fentons! It's so good to see you two again." He said, taking Maddie's hand. "Tell me how have you been?"

"Well Vladdie, we've-" Jack began.

"That's nice Jack." Vlad cut him off. "Now, who do we have here?" He asked, turning towards the four teenagers, letting go of Maddie's hand.

Maddie smiled widely, turning towards them. "This is my daughter, Jasmine Fenton." She said, introducing the firey red-head first.

Jazz smiled and extended her hand, Vlad taking it and giving it a firm shake. "It's an honor to meet you sir. Thank you for inviting us."

"Anytime, my dear girl." Vlad let go of her hand and turned towards Danny, an eyebrow cocking slightly with interest. "And who might this one be?" He asked, looking back at Maddie. He knew the answer, of course, but he wasn't about to let the Fentons know just how much he knew about their son.

"This is my son, Danny." Maddie introduced him.

Danny looked at Vlad, his azure eyes carefully looking him over. The man felt almost strangely familiar, and not in a good way. His name had rung bells when he had first heard it, although he couldn't quite figure out why. Maybe it was just because he had read something about him somewhere, or something.

Vlad returned Danny's assessing look. The boy had changed quite a bit since he had last observed him during one of the display fights at The Institute. When he had heard news of a ghost hybrid being there, that had attracted his attention immediately-and it was held when he found out that the hybrid was none other than the son of Jack and Maddie Fenton.

He had had intentions of buying the boy, but unfortunately, he managed to escape before that. The older man had decided to try and see if May could handle re-capturing him, for she was a very competent woman. It seemed, however, that she had a fatal flaw-she would always underestimate her opponents. It was no real loss though. He had never really liked the woman.

And the fact that Danny had managed to defeat her made his interest in the boy grow further. Though she did underestimate her opponents, May's power was still nothing to sneeze at. After all, it wasn't every psychic who could control an entire building full of people, causing a massacre.

Danny's eyes narrowed slightly as he noticed that Vlad was returning the look that he was giving him. Something about this man made him uneasy.

"And these are Danny's friends, Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley." Maddie finished the introductions, seemingly oblivious to the stare-down that was going on between her son and her old college friend. Vlad looked away from Danny to look at the two other teenagers, putting on a charming smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet both of you, Samantha and Tucker." He offered his hand to each of them. "Any friend of the Fentons can consider themselves a friend of mine."

Sam avoided the urge to twitch upon the use of her full name. "Please call me Sam, Mr. Masters. Everyone does."

"Sam it is then." Vlad smiled, releasing the raven-haired girl's hand. So this was Danny's object of obsession. The boy certainly had an odd taste in women. Still, the man knew that he could use her to his advantage. If he had her in his hands, then Danny would do whatever he said. Including ridding the world of his father.

"Well then, why don't we all go in and have some dinner?" Vlad asked, turning around and heading back towards the house. "If you'll all follow me inside I'll show you to the dining room."

They followed him inside, Danny taking a position in the far back. Sam turned back to look at him, frowning slightly, and slowed her steps so that she matched his pace. "Is something wrong?" She asked. She knew that look on his face. He wore it whenever he was suspicious about something.

"There's something about that guy I don't like." He mummered, staring at his back. "I think I've seen him before."

Sam frowned, looking back up towards the man. "Really?" She whispered, so as not to attract the attention of anyone else. For now, this conversation would be between her and Danny. The demigiest nodded slowly, and Sam's frown deepened. "That's weird..." Where could have Danny possibly encountered the richest man in America before?

The answer struck her like a lighting bolt, and she stopped in her tracks, grabbing Danny by the arm. Danny turned around, his eyes meeting with hers, and both knew that they had come to the same conclusion.

The Institute.


	6. The Dinner

**AN: **Chapter Six is here! There were some rough parts in this chapter for me, which is why it took so long for me to write. But, now it's here! (bounces up and down) Oh, oh oh Whatever are Vlad and Phoenix planning? Oh, oh, oh (spins around happily) Only I and they know!

And now, for some blast from the past! Everybody lookit the prettieful May doll that I gots from a request by Sakky-chan!

toweroftime. com/ requests / Sakky / sakky mayclayborne. gif

Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Butch Hartman. This fic, demigiests, and the character of Phoenix, however, do.

* * *

Wanted

Chapter Six: The Dinner

"That _bastard!_" Danny spat out, his eyes blazing crimson, the serpentine slits in them narrowing more than usual. Sam felt her heartbeat speed up, an enraged Danny always frightened her. He whipped around to Sam. "That bastard was one of the people who wanted to buy me!"

"Danny, calm down." Sam advised him, placing an hand lightly on his arm. "Making a scene isn't going to do us any good."

"Why shouldn't I make a scene?" He spat, glaring back at the now distant figure of the billionaire. "I remember him now, and all too well. Why shouldn't I just go over there and give the bastard what he deserves?"

Sam sighed. "Because, Danny, we don't have any proof. If you just did that... well then, things would probably end badly." She shook her head. "It's best if we just play along for now and try to find out what it is he wants." Her mouth twisted in a slight frown. "Besides you, obviously."

The demigiest gritted his teeth, obviously torn between what he wanted to do, and what he knew was a better idea. After awhile, he sighed, his crimson eyes fading back into his normal azure color. "Fine..." He grumbled, though not looking too pleased about having to restrain himself.

Sam smiled at him, standing up on her tip-toes and planting a soft kiss on his cheek. The raven-haired boy's mood shifted almost instantly, grabbing her firmly by the back and spinning her around. Sam barely had time to let out a shriek of surprise before he stole a kiss from her lips.

The sound of a clearing throat broke their moment, and the two teenagers looked up to find a bemused Vlad staring down at them, an eyebrow quirked. "If you two lovebirds are quite finished, we have a dinner to begin."

Danny shot him a nasty look, both angry at him for interrupting his moment with Sam, and his involvement in his past. He set the gothic girl back down on her feet and took her hand. Sam, grasped hers around it, flushing slightly. At least it wasn't Danny's parents who had broke them up- somehow that would just be so much more embarrassing.

They followed the older man inside, stopping when they met back up with Danny's family and Tucker. Vlad gave them a warm smile, though Sam could tell that it was a fake. Her eyes drifted over to Jazz, wondering if she could tell to. When it came to deceit, she usually was the most perceptive one in the family. Today, however, it looked like she was just a little overwhelmed by the prospect of dining with the most successful man in America. Seeing that, Sam's eyes went back to Vlad.

"Well, before we get dinner started, there's someone here that I would like you all to meet." Vlad announced, the false smile still plastered on his face. Those gathered exchanged looks with each other, wondering. Sam and Danny, knowing what they did, especially wondered.

"As you all know, though I might be the most powerful man in America next to the president, I don't have anyone to take over should I have to depart this world." He explained. "Which is why several months ago, I decided that I would like to adopt. I want you all to meet my son."

"He's lying..." Sam whispered under her breath. Danny looked down at her, following her intense violet gaze to the older man.

Before Danny got to make any sort of comment, out strolled a raven-haired teenager. He appeared much the same age as them, perhaps just a little older. His eyes were hidden by a pair of black tinted sunglasses, and he was exceptionally pale. He wore simple black clothing, that covered a large part of his body.

Phoenix stared back at them, a shiver running through his body. Normally in such close quarters with a group of other people, his senses would go wild, driving him up the wall. But... his eyes drifted to Vlad, shuddering, unconsciously taking hold of his arm, a ghost pain rising in him. He had found out what that needle contained allright-it was a suppressant, one which forced the external veins back into him. Very, very painfully.

But it caught his interest. It was something that he never knew that he had. Phoenix's senses were exceptional, but he had his limitations. He had never been able to tell what was in that safe, nor with any other secure area of the house. It greatly annoyed him, but now he would redouble his efforts to find out just what the older man was hiding from him. He didn't like the idea of being left in the dark.

And more importantly, he wanted that suppressant. Already he was thrilling at being able to be near people without the annoying buzz of information that his senses constantly fed him. He hadn't been able to actually do this ever since they first emerged as a small child-he couldn't even remember what being normal was like.

Vlad's voice broke his thoughts. "Maddie, Jack, this is Phoenix." He introduced them.

Maddie extended her hand, smiling at him. "Well, it's lovely to meet you." She frowned slightly, noticing that the boy merely stared at her hand, half looking at her like she was crazy. Not wanting an awkward moment, she put the hand away.

Sam and Danny exchanged another look out of the corner of their eyes. Sam spoke silently, making shapes with her mouth without actually making any sound. '_What is he?_' She was saying.

Danny's eyes trailed back to the boy, who now had his eyes on the two. They slid away once he saw that he was looking at him, and Danny eyed Sam, likewise mouthing his words. 'I'm not sure. Not a ghost. But he doesn't seem like much of a threat anyways, if he's involved in this.'

Sam frowned, giving him a look that said she wasn't too sure. But she dropped her gaze from him, her eyes settling back on their host. He had turned away from them, and was opening up the door to the dining hall.

"Please, do make yourselves comfortable." Vlad said as the doors to the dining hall opened fully. Sam found herself slightly gawking at the size of it, and from the corners of her eyes, she could see that she wasn't alone-Tucker had a similar expression on his face. Despite the fact that she was rather rich, she had never in all her life, seen a dining room quite as big as this one. It was superfluous, really.

In the center of the large, ornate room, was a long polished table, gleaming bowls, plates, and silverware already set on it. There were covered dishes running down the table, and the plush dining chairs were all pulled out. Everything had been made ready before they had come, and honestly... Sam found that almost a little unnerving. She also wondered if she would have felt the same way if she hadn't learned from Danny what she did.

Vlad Masters, the Fentons, and their two guests made their way into the dining room, finding that there were naming cards placed at where they were supposed to sit. This too, made Sam nervous, and she glanced at Danny, uncertain. The two of them were sitting next to each other, but Vlad had placed Danny right next to, the older man sitting at the head of the table. On his other immediate side, he had placed Maddie, and had placed Jazz between her and her husband. Tucker sat next to Sam, and Phoenix was placed, rather unhappily it appeared, next to Jack.

Sam slowly took her seat, glancing sideways at Danny still. The demigiest caught her eye, giving her a look that said he really didn't like this idea. No doubt he was suspicious of the food-she suspected he might even be suspicious of the chairs, from the way he looked it over before he sat down.

Vlad gave the assembled group a charming smile, but anyone who looked close enough could see that it was artificial. "I've had my cooks slaving away all day on this meal, and I hope you like it." He said, looking at Maddie as he did. The older woman blinked, suddenly feeling somewhat awkward, but she managed to give him a charming smile back.

"I'm sure everyone will love it, V-man!" Jack's rather loud voice broke the slight silence that had befallen the room, a huge grin plastered on his face, completely oblivious of the fact that his old friend was most likely trying to woo his wife. "When can we eat!"

Vlad laughed, a laugh that was supposed to sound rather hearty-however, he failed miserably at that, as it sounded more villainous than anything else. Sam and Danny once more exchanged looks, and Sam could tell that the demigiest was muttering something under his breath along the lines of- 'Can I please maim him now?'.

"Why, right now of course!" Getting up a bit, Vlad yanked the cover off the dish nearest to him, revealing a fully stuffed turkey. "After all, it would be a great shame to let all the hard work and preparation go to waste."

"Great!" Without wasting a moment, Jack did just that, piling as much food onto his plate as he possibly could. Maddie laughed at her husband's overindulgence, taking much smaller portions of the provided food, as did her daughter. Tucker ignored the vegetables completely, instead opting for every meat dish he could get his hands on.

Vlad eyed the two. "Is there something wrong? You're not touching a thing. Are you two not hungry?" He asked, looking suspiciously at the pair. Could they perhaps have... it was possible, he supposed. After all, the boy wasn't as stupid as his father... He resisted the urge to shoot a glare at the large man, currently displaying a lack of table manners that a toddler would be jealous of.

"It's nothing..." Danny said slowly, unable to keep an edge out of his voice. The only one who remained unaware of the tone was Jack. "And yes. We're just not hungry."

Sam nodded quickly, suddenly feeling ill at ease at the table. _Dammnit, Danny, couldn't you control your tone just a bit better?_ She thought, moving to take the demigiest's hand. "I think that maybe a walk will help us get our appetite's back..." She gave Vlad a fake smile. "I apologize if we're causing any inconvenience."

The older man shook his head, leaning back in his chair. "Oh no, child. You're not causing me any trouble at all."

Sam nodded nervously and tightened her grip around Danny's hand, getting up and leading him out of the room. The azure-eyed boy shot one last glare at Vlad, before he left with her.

Tucker frowned, watching them go, before he put down the rib he was eating, and scooted his chair back. "Umm... I'm going to go make sure that they're allright." He said, before scampering off behind them. There was something those two weren't telling him, and he got the feeling that he needed to know what it was.

Maddie heaved a sigh as she watched them go. She almost had a feeling that Danny would act up tonight, but she hadn't expected Sam to as well. She looked at Vlad, a soft smile on her face. "I'm sorry about that, Vlad. It's just..." She let out another sigh. "Danny's been going through some trouble, lately. I'm sure he didn't mean to speak to you that way."

"Oh, it's quite allright." Vlad dismissed it with a wave of his hand, staring across at the lovely red-haired woman, the object of his own affection. "Going through trouble, you say?" He asked, doing his best to sound harmlessly inquisitive.

"Yes, but it's nothing for you to concern yourself with, Vlad." Maddie smiled at him. "Danny's just going through a rather... troublesome phase in his life. You were his age once, you know how it is, right?" She asked, mentally noting just how much of an understatement she was making.

"Well, if you're certain Maddie." Vlad gave her a fake concerned frown. "After all, you know that I would just _hate _to be a bother."

"Oh Vlad. How would you ever be a bother? You're an old friend." Maddie smiled at him.

"Thank you for the kind words, Maddie. They mean much to me." Vlad smilied back at her, glancing at Phoenix out of the corner of his eyes, meeting with the hidden misshapen ones. "Now... on to more cheerful topics, yes?"

* * *

"Sam? What's up with Danny?" Tucker asked, as he caught up with the couple. They had both quickly made their way out of the house, and were now standing outside, Danny leaning against the RV, his eyes closed and his head against it.

After checking the area, Sam let out a deep sigh, gazing back towards the mansion. "Tucker, we think that this Vlad... might have been someone involved in The Institute."

"What?" Tucker stared at them, wide-eyed, as his head practically snapped off his neck from how quickly he whipped his head around to look at the mansion. "You're serious?"

"Couldn't be more." Danny spoke, through gritted teeth. It was clear from the look on his face that he was currently battling to keep his temper down. Sam had told him not to act, not to do anything, or say anything about that man, but _damn_, it was difficult. Controlling himself wasn't exactly something he was good at anymore... if he was ever. His stay at the Institute certainly hadn't made his self-control any better, that was for sure...

"Damn... Do you think he wants Danny?" Tucker asked, looking back at the two. He knew the answer to the question already, he didn't need the nodding of Sam's head, or the rather expletive answer of Danny's. "What do we do, then?"

"I'm not sure." Sam sighed, closing her eyes to think. Honestly, besides not letting Vlad know that they were on to him-which she was certain he was now- she hadn't really had the time to plan that far ahead. They knew he wanted Danny back... but Sam was having some difficulty guessing at what his game might be. The food he was serving might be posioned... but no, he and that boy were eating it as well. It couldn't be just that, and though Sam didn't know him all that well, she couldn't easily imagine him stopping to something as low as murder.

She couldn't help but glance over towards Danny as the thought crossed her mind. The irony didn't fail her.

The thought struck her then that Vlad might try and tell the Fentons about what their son had done, and had been forced to do at that place... but no, that wouldn't work out either. That kind of knowledge would show them that Vlad had been well aware of the entire organization, and Sam couldn't imagine his involvement in the place that had destroyed Danny's mind would go over too well.

She let out a frustrated sigh. "I can't do it! I just can't see how he plans to take you, Danny. We know he's going to try _something_. But what?" She frowned, crossing her arms in front of her, her eyes shutting again in contemplation. "You don't think that he might try with direct force, would you?"

"Who would he possibly have that could fight a demigiest?" Tucker pointed out. "I mean... Didn't May's brother release all of the prisoners? There would be no one left there for him to use agianst Danny."

"Unless he had bought someone from there beforehand." Danny added in. Sam and Tucker looked over at him. He had shoved his hands inside his pockets, and was looking over towards the manison. "Who here wants to bet that his little _'son'_ isn't normal?" His azure eyes narrowed, a faint hint of crimson in them.

"Bought? You mean like..." Tucker searched for an accurate simile, and falling in finding one, said the first thing that came to his mind. "...like someone buys a video game or something?"

"Or something." Danny frowned. "May didn't just supply those in power with what they wanted- she also supplied to anyone who could pay her prices. Which were... well." He laughed. "You could sell this entire estate and still not have money enough for one of the patients."

"He looks normal to me..." Sam mumbled, chewing on her lip. "But Danny's right, that doesn't mean he is. We need to keep an eye on him."

Tucker looked between the two with uncertianity. "You know, is it really a good idea then to leave Vlad and that kid alone with Danny's family? I mean... what if he was counting on us leaving so he could do something?"

Sam and Danny exchanged looks, before giving a rather dumbfounded look back at Tucker, before looking back at each other again. Sam smacked her forehead, cursing herself under her breath for not even thinking of that-bless Tucker for having the brain to. Danny cursed rather loudly, letting out a chain of swear words that would have made a hardened sailor proud.

"Let's hurry back inside." Sam suggested, only to find that Danny and Tucker already were. She quickly caught up with them, as they headed back into the house. Sam reached her hand out to slow Danny down, Tucker having already slowed back down to a more normal-looking walk-if nothing had happened, then it would look quite bizaree for them to just burst into the room.

Sam found that her precaution was right-when they entered the dining hall again, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. She frowned as she took a seat, her eyes breifly meeting with Danny's.

"Feeling better, are we?" Vlad asked in a rather cordial voice. If Sam hadn't been listening for the lie in it, she might have actually thought it was geninue. The thought was a little more than unnerving.

"A lot better, thank you. And I apolgize again if we've caused you any trouble, Mr. Masters." Sam said slowly, keeping her voice level and calm. No need to make the man more suspcious than he already was.

"I'm glad to hear that then." He smiled at her, before giving a momentary, and rather chilling glance at Danny, to which the boy met with narrowed eyes. Jazz caught the gaze, and frowned, but after taking a glance at Sam, she decided to hold her tongue. She would talk to the three friends later.

The rest of the dinner passed by rather uneventfully, the only thing of note was the early departure of the boy that Vlad claimed to be his adopted son. He left without a word, which worried Sam, Tucker, and Danny a little. Or at least Sam thought it worried Danny-sometimes it was hard to tell if he was even capable of being worried.

Vlad leaned over in his chair a bit, whispering something to Maddie. The woman eyed Danny a bit, which in turn caused Sam, Tucker, and Danny to exchange glances. What did Vlad want? He wasn't actually planning on telling her, was he?

Sam discarded that idea as she watched their faces, sensing nothing that would indicate that any sort of shocking revelation of any kind was made-so what were they speaking about in hushed tones? Admittedly, it was just somewhat creepy to see Mr. Masters whispering into Mrs. Fenton's ear, period. She glanced over at her husband, who was finishing off one last helping of pork roast, oblivious.

Maddie was nodding when she looked back, and Vlad leaned back into his seat. The ghost huntress got up, scooting back her chair with a smile on her face. "Danny, Mr. Masters would like to talk to you."

The demigiest's azure eyes narrowed, glancing over towards the older man with unveiled distrust. "Why?"

"Ah, Daniel. Can't a man want to get to know the children of his two oldest friends?" Vlad asked, smiling charmingly at him, brushing aside the boy's glare.

Maddie nodded. "That's right. Vlad would just like to get to know you better. All of you, if you don't mind." She smiled at the rest of those assembled. "Jazz, Tucker, Sam, I hope you don't mind. I know you might think that talking with an adult isn't exactly the way you'd like to spend the rest of the evening, but Vlad really does want to get to know you better."

"Besides, V-Man's awesome!" Jack interjected, sensing his cue to chime in. "Who wouldn't want to talk with him? He's got all sorts of great stories to tell about our college days, I'll bet..." Jack sighed, straying somewhat off the topic. "Ahhh, those were the good old days, weren't they, Vladster?"

_How many nicknames does Mr. Fenton have for Mr. Masters anyways? _Sam found herself having to ask.

"Yes... Yes they were..." Vlad's jaw was clenched slightly as he spoke, but he still managed to force a pleasent smile and speak in a cordial tone. He got up from his chair, looking over at Danny, changing the topic almost immeditaly. "So, Daniel, would you care to join me?"

"It's _Danny_." The azure-eyed demigiest corrected him, shooting him another nasty look. It almost looked as if he was ready to rip the man's head off... either that or dip him in ketchup and eat him with a side of fries. It was hard to tell sometimes. "And since it appears I have no other choice.." he said through gritted teeth, hostilty clear in his voice. "...then _fine_."

Sam winced inwardily, watching out of the corner of her eye as she saw Danny's parents exchange worried glances. As outsiders in all of this, they must have no idea why Danny was speaking to Vlad in such a manner. It certiantly didn't help that Danny was never friendly to people outside of his small circle of direct family and friends, either. She could only imgaine what they were thinking, and unbidden, words from the speech that Mrs. Fenton had given to her and Tucker came back.

_Demigiests are prone to violence, sometimes rather irrational violence. There are people they'll simply just hate, for no real reason at all, or for some reason that makes no sense to anyone but them. They'll never listen to reason, and they'll never change their attuide. They are stuborrn and rather rash by nature, after all._

"Ah, Danny it is then." Vlad's false smile never once left his face. "Allow me to show you to my study..."

After a look back at Sam, Danny shoved his hands inside his pockets, unwillingly following the older man. He knew that if anything went wrong... well... he could easilly take out a human, couldn't he?

Too bad he couldn't realize that doing so would only make everything worse.


	7. Trap

**AN:** HOLY! Sorry guys, I didn't realize that it had been two months since I updated this! I'm really sorry! I've been kind of busy with school and other things lately, so I've been somewhat distracted. I'm really sorry for the long wait, so I'll admit I hurried a bit in throwing this chapter together. I think it came out decently, although I left it kind of short... I'll try to be quicker updating this next time! Geez. O.O So sorry...

In any case, this chapter the plot really moves forward, and we get the re-introduction of a character from Dangerous Obsessions! Huzzah for that. xD As always, reviews really are appreciated and adored-and once again, sorry for the wait! Feel free to hit me.

* * *

Wanted

Chapter Seven: Trap

"What did you want to see me for, _Vlad?_" Eighteen-year old Danny Fenton glared at the strangely composed man in front of him, who had taken a seat in one of the plush study chairs. The man had offered the demigiest a seat, but he had chose to stand, not trusting for one minute anything that Vlad offered him.

The fact that Vlad's 'adopted son', Phoenix, was hovering in the background, didn't help matters. Gone were his dark sunglasses, his mismatched yellow eyes boring hole into Danny's back.

Vlad gave him an almost amused look, watching the demigiest from his seat. "Ah, Daniel. Can't an old friend of your parents want to get to know their son without having him try to bite his head off?"

"_Not _when the so-called friend attempted to buy their son from a deranged psychopath, _no_." Danny shot back at him, ignoring Sam's advice that they should keep quiet about what they knew.

"Ah." Vlad clasped his hands in front of him, looking on at the boy with well-hidden amusement. "I was right then. You do remember me."

Danny's eyes narrowed, bordering on turning crimson. "Of course I do. How the _hell _could I possibly forget you?"

"Now, Now, Daniel." The man said in the same, perfectly cool, somewhat amused tone. "Calm down. It seems that your temper hasn't improved any."

"What the _hell _do you know about my temper?!" He hissed, his eyes now flashing crimson. His fists were clenched, and he was literally this far away from punching Vlad in the face, then ripping out his heart like he had done with May. In his eyes, he more than deserved it.

An unconscious shiver ran down his spine, recalling when he had seen him before, watching him from the viewing box. He gazed down at him in the arena just as he was looking at him now-cool, composed, and terribly, terribly amused. Just the thought of it made his stomach churn, and he was grateful for the fact that he had abstained from eating anything that Vlad served.

"Only that you have one." The man said simply, not the least bit unnerved. "Your temper, and your rage... I'm not sure I've seen anything worse, Phantom." May's code name for him slipped through his lips, coated with amusement.

A smirk appeared on the man's face, watching Danny's eyes go wide, then narrow once more. Faint trickles of red dripped from his hands, his fists clenched so tight that he broke the skin and bled. He was shaking violently now, the serpentine slits in his eyes shrunken down to little pinpricks.

"Do _not..._ _Do not call me that!_" Danny hissed, his very voice quaking with rage.

Vlad's eyebrow arched, his voice still amused. "And why shouldn't I, _Phantom?_" He stressed the name, much to the demigiest's growing anger.

"It's _not _my name." The demigiest hissed, voice distorted with the rage that was coating every word. "My name is Danny Fenton. _Not Phantom._"

Vlad only laughed at that, shaking his head as he stood up. "Really now?" He asked, carefully looking over the boy. "Because I was under the impression that Danny Fenton died years ago. On the day that he snapped, and became a pretty let pet for May until that pet decided it would like a longer leash."

"_I'm nobody's pet!"_ Danny could barely control himself now, the pupils in his eyes almost gone. He whipped his head around, watching Vlad's steps like a predator watched it's prey.

This might have been frightening to another man, but not to Vlad Masters, as he cooly returned his gaze, not a hint of fear on his face. "Well, not now you aren't." He said cooly. "The pet killed the master." He frowned, leaning closer to the demigiest so that their eyes were level. "But I find it very difficult to believe that the pet know wants to be tamed."

"What are you talking about!?" Every second that the conversation went on, Danny was having more and more difficultly containing himself. He wanted nothing more than to just lash out at this man, give him payback for what had been done to him at that piece of hell. He wanted to lunge at him, reach into his chest and tear out his heart, just like he had done with May. He wanted to crush this one too, to feel the warm, sticky blood trickle between his fingers, to feel the heart beat it's last beat under his hands...

Vlad laughed again, stepping away from him. "I think that you are trying so hard to obtain something that you are never going to get back- your sanity." Vlad knew that if Danny could possibly look any angrier, that right now, he would have done so.

"You might delude yourself into thinking that you'll be able to blend back into human society, but I'm afraid that you won't ever be able to do so. For you see, _Phantom,_" he once again emphasized the name. "You're no longer human. Not even in that form." He smirked. "After all, I'm curious to know what kind of human has those kinds of ears, or claws, for that matter. It's only a matter of time before you realize this for yourself."

He continued on, enjoying the shivers that were running through the young demigiest's body. He was quaking with rage, and it wasn't hard to tell what he was yearning to do with every passing moment. "What good is pretending to be human going to do you? The only thing that keeps you rooted to that goal is your little obsession, isn't it? The Sam girl." He waved his hand dissmissvely. "She might love you know, but she doesn't know too much about what you've done, does she?" He asked slowly, looking back towards him.

"It's interesting, you know. You feel sure now that your family and your friends will accept you irregardless of what you are, or what you've done... and yet, you won't sit down to talk to them about it. How strange."

Danny let out a howl of pain then, his crimson eyes widening as he felt his nails suddenly extend, the claws that he kept trimmed growing suddenly and piercing the skin of his hands. He pulled his hands slowly out of his fists, nursing his wounded hands, the liquid that dripped from them a mixture of human blood and ectoplasm.

"You even bleed ectoplasm." Vlad observed with a laugh, shaking his head. "You might as well come to terms with this now, Phantom. The boy you once were, Danny Fenton... he's been dead and buried ever since you stepped into that portal. And once your loved ones realize that... well, I doubt they'll be your loved ones for much longer, at any rate."

Those words, as Vlad intended, were the final straw. He lunged at him, so focused on the conversation that he never once noticed that Phoenix had since left the room.

* * *

"Hey Jazz?" Sam heaved a sigh finally, getting up and going over to the older woman. Jazz blinked, looking up at her. "Can I talk to you for a moment? In private, if you don't mind? It's improtant."

"Sure, Sam." She frowned a bit, wondering what it was that Sam wanted to talk with her about. She, Danny and Tucker had been acting rather odd since dinner started... She pushed back her seat, getting up, and folded her napkin. Jazz looked over towards her parents, who were chatting away with each other. "Mom? Dad? I'm going to step out with Sam for a second, but we'll be right back."

Maddie smiled at her. "Allright Jazz. If Vlad comes back, we'll let him know."

Jazz smiled at her, and followed Sam out of the room. Sam headed towards the outside dining area, which was connected to the indoor one by two large, glass doors. Once she had closed the doors behind them, Sam looked up at Jazz.

"Vlad's after Danny."

Jazz blinked at her a few times, her mouth hanging open a bit. "What?" She looked at the younger girl, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. She didn't think that Sam was lying, but... Vlad, after Danny? What on Earth would the richest man in America want with her little brother? "Sam, what are you trying to say?" She asked slowly, gripping the young girl's shoulders.

If Vlad really was after Danny, then she had just let him walk away with him, alone. A sense of dread began to gnaw at her stomach.

"I mean, that Vlad was interested in _purchasing_," saying the very word disgusted her, she couldn't believe that anyone could sell a human being to another human being. "Danny from May when he was at The Institute. Danny told me that he remembered seeing him there, observing him when he..." She stopped then, realizing that Danny had most likely not told Jazz about the fights. And if he hadn't, she didn't intend to.

"When he what?" Jazz looked at Sam in confusion, then shook her head. She wasn't going to tell her, that was the reason that she had stopped talking. She heaved a sigh, taking her hands off of her shoulders, and began to pace. "Who else knows?"

"Just Tucker." Sam said quickly. "And that's why we need to..." She paused, looking over towards the bushes. She could have sworn that one had just _moved._

Jazz paused in her pacing, following Sam's line of vision. "What is it?" She looked back at the girl, then back at the bush, and then walked over towards the railing, peering down. Sam followed her, looking down carefully.

"I swore I saw one of those move." Normally Sam would dismiss it, but she was in a rather suspicious state of mind at the time being.

"It did." The bushes rustled again. Sam and Jazz quickly exchanged looks, before they looked back towards the voice that had spoken from the bushes. They'd heard it somewhere before, but...

Brown eyes peered out from the bushes, a mop of brown hair was brushed back as a young male no older than Sam stood up in them, looking around the area suspiciously. Sam and Jazz's eyes went wide, it didn't take them long to recognize the boy. How could they forget him? Though he didn't play a large part in May's scheme, it was a bit difficult for Sam to forget the person who had pointed a gun to her head just a few months prior.

Matthew Clayborne. May's younger brother, the only relative that she hadn't offed on her quest for power. He had been there at that final battle, May's faithful marionette, keeping them from aiding Danny until he had finally been knocked out. It wasn't later until they discovered that he had been just as much under May's control as Jazz had been for that brief period of time. They'd let him leave, and they hadn't seen him since then.

So what was he doing here, in Vlad's bushes?

"Hi." He grinned somewhat awkwardly at them. "Listen, I know you two have all reason in the world not to trust me, but you really need to leave right now. Or at least get down here and hide in the bushes."

"Why should we do that?" Sam asked, suspiciously. Controlled or not, she wasn't too keen on trusting the flesh and blood of the woman who had tortured her best friend for so long.

"Because Vlad's got something up his sleeve, as I'm sure you've already noticed." He eyed Jazz. "And unless you'd like to feel like a puppet again, I suggest you do what I say."

"A puppet?" The redhead arched an eyebrow. "May's chips stopped working once she died."

Matt shook his head. "No, not the chips. That boy that's with Vlad, Phoenix... he has these _weird_ vein things. Pops 'em into your brain, and your his instant puppet. Vlad wants your brother for his own still, and he's going to use you all to get it."

"Then we have to go back inside and warn..." Sam spun around her eyes gazing back into the dining room. She was about to step forward towards the door until she noticed a cloaked figure enter, coming from a door behind the Fentons and Tucker.

"There's no time!" Matt hissed, standing on his tiptoes and peering just above the porch floor. "Get down here before he notices you!"

"But Danny!" Sam whipped around.

"Will be better off without the two of you as puppets! We can get him once Phoenix is gone." Matt insisted. "Now get down here before I pull you down!"

Sam and Jazz exchanged looks, before the quickly hopped the railing, landing in the bushes below the porch.

* * *

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Things can get shot to hell quicker than people ever think they can.

Vlad knew that. And he also knew that the second Danny lunged at him, the second his claws contacted with his flesh, that things would fall apart for him. Vlad knew that, and he had laid plans. As soon as Danny's claws sunk in, opening matching cuts on his stomach, stunned shouts met the demigiest's ears, and he whirled around quickly, coming face to face with his family, his best friend, and his object of obsession.

Or at least that was the plan. It didn't take long for Vlad to realize that the sister and the object of obsession were missing... Well, of no mind. He was certain that his plan would work, irregardless of those two being here.

"Danny!?" Maddie's blue eyes went wide. Danny's own crimson eyes fell on them, his rage suddenly leaving him in a rush. His pupils reappeared, and his eyes faded back to azure, and he realized what had just happened.

He had just walked straight into Vlad's trap.


	8. Information

AN: I really liked writing this chapter, especially for Matthew. He's a pretty fun guy to write for, who may or may not be just as crazy (if not more so) than Danny. Anyways, Wanted is back! I hope you guys will enjoy this chapter- it's a bit longer than normal because I had trouble figuring out where to stop it. Read and review if you can, please!

_____________________________________________

Wanted

Chapter Eight: Information

Danny's mouth worked wordlessly as his parents and his best friend hurried into the doorway, staring in horror at the sight before them. Vlad was kneeling down on the ground, one hand over his wounded stomach, red blood leaking from out of his torn shirt and dripping over his hands.

Blood that was also on Danny's hands. The demigiest gritted his teeth as it slowly dawned on him that this was all part of Vlad's plan. "Keh." His eyes narrowed, turning crimson again as he glared at the man in anger. "You bastard!" He yelled at him in irritation, kicking him in the head. How dare he play him like a fool!?

Never mind that this wasn't entirely the most logical thing for him to do at the moment. But logic had never been one of his strong points even before becoming a demigest.

"_Vlad!_" Maddie called out, causing the boy to whip around, staring at her. The woman had drawn out an ectopistol, from where, he wasn't entirely sure- and probably didn't want to know. "Don't move another step." She said, her eyes narrowed. Her voice however, sounded strange, almost as if she was speaking from a distance, something which the demigest missed entirely.

"And what if I do?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. From his viewpoint, his mother had just really shown her true colors. Deep down, there was always a fairly sizeable part of him that knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. She didn't even care to hear an explanation before whipping out the ectopistol.

_Not like it would have mattered anyways. _He thought. _In the end, to her, I'm just another ghost. The fact that I'm her son means nothing to her anymore. _He let out a low chuckle then, a smirk forming at the edge of his lips. _Or you could even say was. After all, she must look at me and see none of him left. Even I don't._

"I'm sure you know the answer to that already." She said, her voice firm. Behind her, Jack had moved to retrieve his own ectopistol. Tucker, his old best friend, was boring holes into his head with his eyes, a mixture of horror and disgust displayed across his features.

"I see." He laughed a little at that, tucking his hands into his pockets as he glanced over at Vlad. The man was playing a convincing victim, to make matters even worse. He heaved a deep sigh, before grinning, his form slowly shifting from his human body to that of his demigest one, black hair being replaced by white, his claws growing back out and his clothing shifting in appearance.

"So that's how it is." He gave another mock sigh, tilting his head to the side, a look of fake disappointment appearing on my face. "Then it's back to the original plan, I suppose." He shrugged his shoulders, then grinned again, a glimmer in his eyes as he lurched forward, phasing straight through his mother and the wall behind her. He kept going until he was outside the mansion, floating above it a bit.

Once outside, he looked around, searching out Sam's presence. The original plan. That would have been kidnapping Sam and running away with her, of course. No other people involved, no friends or family to betray him.

He found himself a bit surprised at that last thought, shaking his head. "Betray?" He asked himself, a slight bitter tone to his voice. "It's nothing like that. It was just a matter of how much time they could stand to spend around you." He frowned a little, closing his eyes. "It's only natural."

He let out another sigh, before he opened his eyes again, tilting his head to the side as he looked below him. His eyes fixed on a head of black hair, and he frowned, crimson eyes narrowing as he spotted Jazz next to her, as well as another person... who was that?

The realization struck him quickly enough. "That _bastard!_" He gritted his teeth, clenching his fists in anger, his pupils shrinking until they were pin pricks from the sheer amount of rage that coursed through his body.

Flying downwards quickly, Phantom grabbed onto Matthew by the shoulder and yanked him backwards, pulling him close. Taking the boy by surprise, he let out a howl of pain as the demigiest's claws dug into his shoulder. "_Clayborne!_" He hissed through clenched teeth. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

"Agh!" Matthew winced, fighting to free himself from Phantom's grasp, but he held him tight, grabbing onto his other arm and wrenching it back painfully. "Damnit! I'm only trying to- _Agh!_ To help you!" Hissing in pain, he winced his eyes shut. "Let me go already!"

"What the hell makes you think I _want_ your help, you scum!?" He hissed, crimson eyes blazing as he twisted Matthew's arm harder, sinking his claws deeper into his shoulders. He didn't trust this guy, even if he had helped erase traces of his existence. Under the control of his older sister or not, he still wasn't going to forgive him for the things that he had done to him while he was still in the Institute.

"Danny, stop!" Sam protested, taking a few steps forward, holding up one of her hands. Jazz joined her, reaching out to take her brother's hand off of the poor brunette's arm. "He's telling the truth. He got us out of there before we were exposed to whatever Vlad did to your parents and Tuck."

"Hah? What about Vlad?" Phantom looked skeptical still, arching one eyebrow as he glanced at Matthew. Though he didn't resist his sister's removal of his hand from his arm, he still kept his other one on Matt's shoulder.

Almost as soon as she had done so, Matt grabbed onto Phantom's other hand, and neatly flipped the demigiest over his shoulder. "I said let me go of me, damnit!" Glaring at the demigiest, he grasped his bleeding shoulder with his hand, making a noise of disgust. "Bloody demigiest."

Phantom got to his feet easily enough, shaking off the blow. The brown haired boy was stronger than he looked. "Oh, is that it then, huh?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. "You know, I have a lot of unfinished business with you, whether you were under mind control or not. Give me one reason why I just shouldn't kill you now."

"Because if you kill me, your chances are _screwed_, Phantom." Matt glared at him, ready to get into it if he needed to. "And the longer we stick around this place, the sooner they'll find us. Or did you want to get caught by Vlad?" He asked.

"Danny, come on." Sam spoke up now, approaching him. She carefully placed a hand on his shoulder. "I don't think he's lying, we need to get out of here." She frowned at him. "The fact that you're out here like this is proof of that alone."

Phantom seemed to hesitate for a second, but eventually he seemed to calm down. He shot a glare at Matthew, however, as if reminding him that he was keeping an eye on him. So maybe May was at fault for most of the shit he did at the Institute, but that wasn't exactly going to make him forgive the boy. After all, he was her flesh and blood.

"Fine then, but I'm only going along with this because Sam seems to think you're trustworthy." Phantom told him, pointing at Matthew. "One wrong move and you're going to be joining your sister in the deepest circle of hell."

"What, you would send me to be with my sister for all of eternity?" Matthew asked, making a face at the thought. "And people said she was a sadist."

There was commotion heard from the mansion now, and the quartet turned towards it to look. Matthew clicked his tongue underneath his teeth as he saw that the others were heading down to the dining room again, lead by Vlad and Phoenix. The brown haired male motioned silently to the other three, telling them to follow him. Without really checking to see if they were behind him, he ducked down into the bushes and moved away from the mansion.

The remaining three exchanged looks with one another, before taking one last look back at the others. Sam and Jazz hated to leave Tucker and the Fentons behind, but frankly, Danny was too pissed to care about them at the moment. He still seemed to think that they had truly turned on him.

"Come on." Jazz said quietly, taking her brother's arm. "Let's go."

Phantom followed behind her, grabbing a hold of Sam's hands as they followed behind Matthew. The demigiest was still wary of him, and to some degree, so were Sam and Jazz, even though they didn't think he was lying. The brown haired male lead the trio into the woods behind the mansion. It was only then that he straightened up, now that they could not be spotted from the house.

Matthew was a little worried about Phoenix's senses, but he didn't know how far they reached. He'd only skimmed over his file earlier, since there wasn't much time. Although he had destroyed all of the computers back at the Institute, and their hard copies, he had kept backups just in case he needed them. After all, the patients there were precious pieces of research to the government and other investors, and he had no doubts that they would attempt to try and reclaim some of them.

Or at least, the ones that weren't already sold off or dead. Besides Phoenix, May had sold off several of the Institute's most interesting patients to the highest bidder. It was a small percent, however. The vast majority remained at the place for her own personal amusement.

Although he had hoped not to have to do so, Matthew had ended up killing half of the remaining patients at the Institute, instead of releasing him. There were those who were too far gone to be saved, and to him, killing them was the only solution he knew. It came easy to him, really, and he couldn't really manage to muster up any real regret for the loss of life- something he had to thank his sister for, he suspected.

May the bitch rot in hell.

"Do you even know where you're going?" Danny's voice broke his thoughts. He had resumed his more human form, and was looking at him skeptically.

"Yeah." Matthew glared back at him. Phantom's file had been one he had read over extensively. As much as the demigiest didn't trust him, Matthew returned the favor. And not only because he had threatened to kill him, but for quite a few other reasons as well. "There's a back road behind these woods." He told them. "I have a car parked there."

"You can drive?" Sam found herself saying, almost seeming amazed. Of course, it made sense, Matthew had to had gotten here somehow, but she couldn't exactly picture him driving a car. Or doing anything, normal, really. Maybe it was the fact that he was carrying at least four visible firearms on him. He clearly had a thing for weaponry even without May's help.

Matthew half-glared back at the raven haired girl, his annoyance not helped by Danny's snickering. "Yes, I can drive. Why does that always surprise everyone?"

"No, nevermind." Sam held up her hands. "Forget I even mentioned it." Now was probably not the best time to start fighting.

Matthew still seemed annoyed, but he didn't say anything turning away from them. Eventually they came out of the woods and found the promised car. Matthew lead them towards it and got into the driver's seat. "Get in."

"And where would we be going?" Danny stopped, looking at him skeptically. "How do I know you didn't set this whole thing up, hm?"

"Because I didn't?" Matthew offered, not seeming to really expect Danny to believe him. Ugh, if he had known helping them was going to be this much trouble, he shouldn't have done it in the first place. Still, Vlad troubled him, and he didn't like to think what he might have in store for Phantom if he got his hands on him. He didn't like the fact that he already had one of May's pets to do his bidding as it was, but he also really didn't like Phoenix, so screw him.

"Can you prove it?" Danny asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Not in any way that would satisfy you." Matthew answered. "Just get in. You'll know where we're going when we get there. The more time we waste here, the more chance they have of finding us. Phoenix has got some awesome senses, if he doesn't know where we are already, he'll find out soon enough."

Danny frowned, not really seeming to buy his story. "Fine but, remember, if I see you do anything suspicious, I will end you, _Clayborne_."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, _demigiest_." Matthew responded, meeting his glare. Demigiest or not, there was some strange stuff back at the Institute in it's heady, and he'd had to kill most of it at one point. There wasn't much that scared him anymore.

The other three got in the car then, Jazz taking the seat next to Matthew, with Danny and Sam sliding in the back. The raven haired girl seemed to grumble as Danny took this as an excuse to wrap his arm around her waist, seeming to rest it on one of her butt cheeks. She shot him a look, and he shrugged his shoulders, moving it up a bit to her hips.

"There aren't any seat belts on this thing." Jazz noticed, eyeing Matthew. "Are you _sure_ this thing is safe?"

"Well, not really." Matthew told her, starting up the car. "It's actually a screaming metal death trap, but it was the only thing I had on hand that could carry more than just me." He grinned at her. "Don't worry, I'll have you know I'm an excellent driver."

For some reason, his reassurances didn't help.

________________________________________________

"Oh dear God, I am never getting in a car with you again." Jasmine Fenton had her answer, leaning against the door of the car. "That was an hour of pure hell. How exactly did you manage _not _to get pulled over!? Or kill us, for that matter?!"

"Like I said, I'm an excellent driver." Matthew told her, not seeming to understand why she was so terrified.

"You ran every single red light, and you almost hit five pedestrians!" Jazz yelled at him. "Who the hell taught you how to drive, anyways?!"

"Well, me." Matthew told her, blinking. "Besides, those guys had it coming anyways. Don't they know that the road is for cars?"

Danny was watching the whole thing with an amused eye. He had never seen Jazz so riled up before, really. It was actually kind of funny. Though she was right, Matthew was a horrible driver. There were even times when he was feeling just a little bit worried.

"Well, we're here anyways." Matthew said, waving his hand. "Come on inside and I'll fill you guys in." He paused, eyeing Danny. "It's not a trap, really."

"Right." Even know, he still didn't seem so sure, but was going to go along with this for now. He glanced down at Sam, who was trying to get a hold of herself as well. Jazz wasn't the only one who had nearly had a heart attack while out on the road.

Matthew lead them inside what appeared to be a rundown house. After jimmying with the lock on the door for a second, he opened it, letting them in. The place was almost barren, save for a sofa, a fridge, a table, a stove, and several more firearms and other various instruments of death. And the boxes. Lots and lots of boxes.

They were scattered all over the place, filled to the brim with papers and file folders. Matthew caught the trio glancing at them. "Hard copies of patient files from the Institute." He told them. "I kept them all in case of an emergency."

"That many of them?" Sam asked, not sure if she was impressed or horrified. There had been that many people that May had gotten a hold of? She didn't even want to know how many papers each box held. Seeing the mountain of boxes was enough.

"Well half of them were from before May's time." He told them. "When our parents still ran the place. Wasn't a little piece of hell on earth back then, really. It was May who made it that way. There's also personal files in there too. So all of it doesn't belong to May's patients. Just most of it."

"You said you were going to tell us what's going on." Danny eyed him, half wondering if his file was tucked away here somewhere. He kind of wanted to read it, really. In all the time he'd been there, nobody had even really told him what half of the tests they had done one him were even for- if they were even for anything. Knowing May, he didn't doubt that some of them were utterly pointless.

"Oh, yeah, right." Matthew blinked, almost seeming to have forgotten. "Um, yeah, just sit someplace." He told them, sitting down on the table himself. "Well, I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys that Vlad was a very big investor in the Institute." He told them. "One of May's favorite customers, really. She would totally have sex with that man if he asked."

The last statement seemed to lose the trio, as the inevitable mental image appeared in their heads. Matthew didn't really seem to notice and went on anyways. "Yeah, anyways, so Vlad was really interested in you Pha-" He paused, stopping himself. "Oh yeah, it's Danny, isn't it? Sorry, forgot. Anyways, he was really interested in Danny. He'd already bought Phoenix from May a year before you came to the Institute, and had his sights set on you almost as soon as he got word of you."

"Apparently, he's an old friend of the Fentons." Sam chimed in.

"Nah, that couldn't be it." Matthew waved his hand, dismissing her. "She didn't give out patient names, just their numbers. I don't know what he found so interesting about you, but he was pretty much the reason you were entered into the fights. May didn't really want to put you into them until she had milked you for every bit of research she could find, but if there's one thing that whore liked more than power and pain, it was money."

Danny clicked his tongue, adding another reason to kill Vlad on his growing list of reasons.

"Right, so, she probably never mentioned this to you because she's a bitch, but May was set to sell you to him just a month after you escaped." Matthew continued. "You fetched a pretty hefty price, I got to say though. Anyways, after you escaped, Vlad was pretty pissed. May wasn't the only one hunting for you, you know. Of course, she just hunted a bit harder because she knew if Vlad found you before she did, then she wouldn't get paid."

"Well, after you offed May in that flashy manner, he pretty much knew where you were, and it didn't take him much longer to figure out where you were." He paused. "I only know this because I hired someone to hack into his computer. Do you know he has a lot of pictures of your mother on his hard drive?" He asked Danny. "Actually pretty creepy. Guy really ought to get a cat."

Jazz and Danny exchanged a look then, both unable to help imagining Vlad trying to woo their mother. As would be expected, it caused them both to wish they really hadn't. "Mm, I thought there was something funny about the way he talked to her. That _is _creepy." Jazz frowned.

"Yeah well, you really don't want to know how he got them, then." Matthew told them. "Back on topic, it seems that Vlad decided to put his plan into motion. Now, let's be clear here, I don't like you." He said, pointing at Danny. "But I like Vlad a lot less, and you did kill my sister, so I figure I owe you one. Besides, if he got his hands on you, that would just be another big mess that I would have to clean up."

"Gee thanks." Danny said dryly. "I could have taken care of it myself, though."

"Pssh." Matthew rolled his eyes at that.

"Oi, what was that supposed to mean?" Danny glared at him. "You didn't do such a great job handling it yourself, you know. My parents and Tucker are still stuck with him and that other freak."

"Hey, I never said I was very good at improvising. I just got word of all this stuff this morning." Matthew shot back. "Besides, your family and friends will be fine. They're too useful to Vlad for him to throw away easily, but if you meet them again, you really shouldn't trust them. Phoenix is kind of like a freaky organic version of May's mind control chip, only his control is a lot harder to break."

"And how do you break it?" Sam asked.

"You have to kill him." Matthew said. "Doesn't sound so hard, but let me tell you three something. When May took over the place, she released her psychic energy to the max, you know? She basically had everybody turn on everyone and kill each other." He frowned, recalling this from experience. "She figured whoever was left after that were the only ones worth her time. Phoenix was one of them. Nobody even touched him."

"Even if he doesn't take you as a puppet, he can still manipulate your sense without you even being aware of it." Matthew told him. "It's like being invisible. You would be dying before you even knew he was near you, if he felt so inclined."

"Ugh, it's never easy with that woman, is it?" Danny frowned, crossing his arms. "She's the first person I've met that is able to cause people to suffer even while dead. I should've killed her more than once."

"Um, Danny, you can't really do that." Jazz pointed out. "Most people kind of only die once."

"Yeah, sure." Danny shrugged, almost not seeming to believe her. "If Vlad wanted me though, why didn't he just use his freaky puppet man to take me then?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. "He practically let me escape."

"Eh, I don't know." Matthew shrugged. "He probably just wanted to mess with you. I don't know what that man is thinking, I can't read minds. But chances are, he'll come after you again. And if he doesn't, then he'll have Phoenix send your parents out."

"We'll have to think of some kind of plan." Jazz mused. She didn't like to think that it had to be a plan that involved killing someone- she was morally opposed to that. If there were some way they could turn Phoenix to their side, then maybe that would work out. Still, given what Matthew had said, she wasn't exactly certain that Phoenix should be someone that could be ignored. She would really like to have her parents back, anyways.

"Right." Matthew said, getting up. "Now, you three can make yourselves comfortable, cause I have some work to go do." He told them, pointing towards the door. "There's some food in the fridge if you get hungry, but whatever you do, don't look in the freezer. Seriously, don't do it." He told them, staring at them.

"Where are you going?" Danny asked. Even after all of that talk, he still had his doubts about the guy.

"Um." Matthew paused. "I have to go do some stuff. Like shopping." He told them, although it seemed to be a blatant lie. "I need, um, more potato chips. And some coffee." He paused for a second longer, looking over the three. "Anyways, I'll be back in an hour. Maybe." He said, heading out the door.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked, watching him go.

"I don't really know, but for some reason I'm tempted to look in the freezer now." Danny frowned, eyeing it.

"It... might be better if we didn't." Jazz advised them, watching the door. She hadn't really noticed it the first time they had met, but Matthew was probably somewhat insane himself. He seemed to be telling the truth about Vlad and Phoenix, at any rate, but he probably was a bit off his rocker.

Which would make two of them, now.

Needless to say, this wasn't quite the vacation she had been hoping for.


	9. Matthew Clayborne

AN: I had too much fun writing this chapter, I think. I like having Jazz and Matthew interact, in addition to just liking to write for Matthew. Anyways, we had our chapter to get to know May in all her bitchadtude in DO, so here we have Matthew's chapter! He's pretty freaking weird, you know. And shocking things are revealed! Shocking, utterly shocking (or maybe not, I don't really know- what am I talking about again?).

______________________________________________________

Wanted

Chapter Nine: Matthew Clayborne

That night, Jazz Fenton found that she couldn't sleep.

Groaning, she got to her feet, stretching a little. It might have been the fact that she was sleeping on a chair, comfy though it was, it was not meant for being slept in. Danny and Sam had taken the couch, finding that they could unfold it into a bed. The redhead paused to look over at them, a faint smile appearing on her face. She had been a bit worried when Danny had suggested it, but it seemed that they were sleeping peacefully.

Her once, it seemed, her brother wasn't bothered by his nightmares. The two raven haired teenagers were close to each other, Danny's arms wrapped around Sam as they shared a pillow. The older girl's smile grew as she moved over to them, carefully pulling the blanket back up, which had been starting to fall off.

Looking around, she wondered if Matthew had come back yet. She didn't seen any sign of the brunette boy and figured he must have still been out. She didn't know what time it was, there was no clock in the room. In fact, the place looked like it had barely been lived in.

Her stomach grumbling, Jazz made her way into the kitchen of the small house and opened up the refrigerator. She paused for a moment, glancing up at the fridge for a second, before she quickly decided against peeking inside. There were some things people were better off not knowing about.

"At least his refrigerator is full." Jazz said to herself, looking in it. There was quite a bit of leftover restaurant food and takeout, and a large amount of beer. It didn't seem like Matthew knew how to cook. She peered in a few of the packages, and eventually settled for pulling out a box of leftover Chinese sticky rice.

Closing the fridge door, she dug through his drawers until she found a pair of chopsticks. She took a seat at the table and started munching on it, peering around the kitchen. Like the living room, it too, was filled with boxes. She reached over to the nearest one and opened the top, peering in. There were a bunch of files in there, all organized by number. She figured they must have belonged to Institute patients.

She shut the box then, not wanting to breach their privacy. There was no way they would know, of course, but it still didn't feel right.

There were, however, two files she did want to take a look at. Her brother's, of course, as well as that Phoenix that Matthew had mentioned. Surly there had to be some way of getting her parents back without having to take his life. She just wasn't comfortable with that. To be honest, Jazz even had a few problems with killing May, but she realized that may have been the only way to handle the problem.

She just didn't like to think that murder could be a means to an end.

"6821." Jazz said aloud, recalling the number tattooed underneath the barcode on her brother's wrist. She paused, taking a look at the book again, and frowned. "Ugh, this is the three hundreds." Taking another bite of the rice, she moved on to the next box. "Four thousands?" She heaved a sigh. "I should have known he had no organization skills."

Jazz continued to peer through the boxes in the kitchen, growing annoyed when she found that none of them were for who she was looking for. She realized as she was looking that she wouldn't be able find Phoenix's file, not if they were organized by patient number. She had no idea what it was.

She paused then, finding a box that seemed to be different. Instead of numbers, it listed people by names. She frowned. "Personnel files?" She asked aloud, crouching down to thumb through it. She paused for a moment, her fingers freezing as they hovered above a file.

Clayborne, Matthew.

Jazz paused, half wanting to read it. It didn't seem quite right though, invading his privacy after he had saved them from being used as Vlad's puppets. Still, she thought, glancing towards the front door, she couldn't deny her curiosity. Chewing on her lip a little, she set down her rice box, sticking her chopsticks in it, and pulled out the file.

She situated herself, leaning against the cabinets and grabbed the rice box again, before she opened up the file. It seemed to be a year old, dating back to 2008. Jazz munched on some of her rice as she read over the first page, a basic sheet of stats. It seemed that he was only nineteen years old- she had thought he would have been a bit older. That was quite the gap between him and his sister.

She flipped over to the next page, and nearly felt herself choke on her rice. Quickly standing up, she grabbed a glass out of one of the cabinets and filled it with water, gulping it down.

"Gah!" She let out a breath, still feeling a burning sensation in her throat. "You're joking right?" She asked herself, taking a seat back on the ground. She looked back at the file again, rereading it again just to make sure. "They can _do _stuff like that?"

"Yeah, they can."

Jazz's eyes went wide and she dropped the file out of shock, looking over to her side. Matthew was crouching by her, reading over her shoulder. She hadn't even noticed him come in. "Ah!" She closed the file quickly, her face heating up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry!" She said, holding up her hands.

"It's fine." Matthew smiled at her, taking the file from her and looking at it himself. "I'm not mad or anything." He told her. "You have every right to check me out." He laughed a little. "I know I'm not exactly the least suspicious guy around."

"No, that wasn't it at all." Jazz told him, not looking at him. "It's just that I shouldn't have done that. Violation of privacy and all."

"I'm kind of used to having my privacy violated." Matthew admitted to her, putting the file away. "Why are you up?" He asked, curious. "Couldn't sleep? I saw the other two conked out on the couch." He laughed a little. "I didn't even know that thing could turn into a bed. I guess I just don't pay enough attention."

"Um, yeah." Jazz admitted, kind of glad for the subject change. "The chair in there isn't exactly the best thing to try and have a good night's rest on." She told him. She frowned a little bit, noticing for the first time the dark circles underneath his eyes, and wondered how long it had been since he had a good night's rest.

"Ah, sorry about that." Matthew told her with a smile. "I don't sleep that much anymore, so I kind of never got around to buying a bed for this place." He noticed the rice box she had out then, and quickly changed the subject away from himself. "Oh, you were hungry?" He asked. "I got some more Chinese food on the way home. You want it? It's Sesame Chicken."

Jazz's stomach grumbled at the mention of the food. "I would love some." She paused. "I mean, I wouldn't want to deprive you of your dinner, or anything."

"No, no, it's fine." Matthew grinned at her, fetching it out of a bag. "I've got plenty of stuff leftover in the fridge." He told her, handing it to her. "Mom always told me when you have guests you have to treat them well." There was something on his face that gave Jazz the impression that this was the first time he had ever had guests over.

"Um, thanks then." Jazz took it from him, opening it up. The brunette boy got up, going to the refrigerator and pulled out another box of leftovers, putting it up on the counter, then went for a beer.

"You know, you're underage." Jazz glanced up at him, watching as he popped the top off the beer. "You really shouldn't be drinking that stuff. It isn't good for you."

"_Ehhh_? But I like it though." He pouted at her, shutting the refrigerator door. It didn't seem like he had even been aware of the drinking limit- or he had forgotten about it. The second one seemed more likely. "Can I really not drink it?" He asked, almost asking her for permission.

"Well, you shouldn't." Jazz frowned. "But it isn't really my place to tell you what to do." She said after awhile.

Matthew grinned at that, setting the bottle down on the floor and grabbed his box of leftovers. He stuck it in the microwave and began to heat it up, humming to himself as he did so.

Jazz glanced up at him as he did, slightly more curious about him than she had been before. He seemed to be entirely different from his older sister, in both personality and looks. She hadn't known May very well (and didn't really want to), but she got the feeling that she wasn't anywhere near as cheerful as her younger brother was. He seemed a little bit off his rocker as well, but that was to be expected, and probably was the result of May.

Although the two both had brown hair and eyes, Matthew appeared to be very unkept and leaned towards darker colors, while his sister favored being neat and like light colors. Jazz frowned a little, her mind straying back again to exactly what it was in his file that had caused her to become so shocked. After a moment's thought, she glanced up at him. "Um, are you really...?" She trailed off, not quite knowing how to put it.

"Hm?" The younger boy glanced down at her. "Oh." He blinked, realizing what she was talking about and grinned. "Yeah, pretty much." He told her, moving to lift up a bit of his shirt. "See, no belly button."

"No way." Jazz sounded surprised. There really wasn't one. The only thing that marred his stomach area were a couple of scars here and there. "I could have sworn that cloning a human was illegal."

"Yeah, my parents had some trouble with that concept." He told her, pulling his shirt back down. The timer on the microwave dinged, and he pulled out his leftovers, opening the box up to reveal some more Chinese food. "Oh man, I love Chinese food." He told her, grabbing his beer and taking a seat on the floor next to her. "I really can't get enough of it!"

"Ah, I see." Jazz blinked, swearing that she could get whiplash from how quickly he changed the topic. She took a bite out of her Sesame Chicken, wondering exactly what else the Claybornes had done at that place, be it May or her parents. She glanced back over at Matthew, who was chowing down on his own Chinese food.

She opened her mouth to ask him about Danny and Phoenix's files, but quickly shut it. He looked hungry, and so was she, so she figured that it could wait until her stomach was full. Taking another bite out of her chicken, she leaned back a bit, trying to relax. It was difficult, so many things had happened in just that one day.

The trio had begun to discuss what to do about Vlad after Matthew had left, but Sam and Danny had tired out early. She couldn't blame them, it had been a rough day. She had let them go to sleep after awhile and had stayed up a bit trying to think things through on her own.

At some point she found herself wishing that she could have noticed something was wrong with Danny right after that accident all those years ago. If she had, and if she had confronted him and tried to help him, would he have still run away? Would things be different if he had stayed at home, or would May have still found him?

She didn't have the answers to those questions. Was there a world somewhere out there, where May hadn't gotten her hands on her little brother, hadn't twisted him into what he was now? Jazz wasn't sure if she believed in parallel universes, but she thought there might be one, somewhere.

"You thinking about something?" Matthew asked her, setting down his beer.

"Hm?" She blinked, looking back over at him. "Oh, yeah. Just a little bit."

"'Bout what?" He asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Just wondering what would have happened if things had been different." Jazz told him with a small smile. "If May had never..." she paused, glancing towards the living room. "Well, had never gotten her hands on my little brother."

"I see." Matthew frowned, taking another swig of his beer. "You guys probably wouldn't be here right now." He looked at his feet a little, he had tossed his shoes off somewhere. "And I would still be her little pet."

There was that, wasn't it? Jazz thought with a frown. In a world where May hadn't gotten her brother, would there have been anything to stand in her way? She had to wonder about that. Maybe the future in that world wasn't exactly as bright as she had seemed to first think. There were so many variables to think about, really. A mountain of what ifs.

"Ah, but nevermind about that." Matthew brightened up instantly, grinning. "You were looking through the files earlier, weren't you?" He asked. "Were you looking for your brother's file?"

"Oh." Jazz nodded, sounding a bit sheepish. "Um, yeah, I was." She told him with a small frown. "Danny won't talk about what happened at that place. I'm worried about him, you know? He's my little brother."

"No, I don't understand that at all." Matthew told her, bluntly. "But I'll get you his file. I was reading over it earlier." He said, getting up and putting his box of Chinese food and beer bottle up on the counter. "But I should warn you, my sister kept meticulous notes on everything." He told her, seeming rather serious now. "You're not going to like reading some of it."

"That's what I figured." Jazz gave him a sad look. "But I have to know. I can't help him if he's just going to keep me in the dark."

"You're a nice person." He told, her grinning. "Really naive, but always really nice!"

"Naive?!" Jazz asked, sounding stunned. "How am I naive?" She asked him, actually just a little bit offended by that. She had spent most of her life studying psychology, and she had been told that she sometimes seemed to know people better than they even knew themselves. Naive? She had never been called that before.

"Well, I guess you'll understand once you read it." Matthew told her, then headed off into the other room. He came back a moment later with her brother's file. "I'll leave you to it, then. It's some pretty intense stuff, so don't say I didn't warn you." He grabbed his food and headed into the next room, leaving her alone with the file folder.

Jazz frowned, setting aside her food for the moment. She opened up the folder, flipping through the pages at first, trying to get a feel for the content and how it was arranged. She found herself pausing, however, on one page, and she understood then.

"Oh god."

______________________________________________________

Matthew Clayborne sat in one of the empty bedrooms, finishing up his food. He took a swig of his beer, then frowned, finding it was almost empty. Maybe he should have taken another one from the refrigerator before he left the kitchen. He certainly couldn't go back there now, not with that Jazz girl reading up on her little brother. That was the kind of thing you needed to be alone for.

He wondered what it was like to have a sibling that cared about you so much. May had only ever used him as a tool, so that she didn't have to do the dirty work herself if she didn't want to. For a long time, that was all he ever knew.

To be fair, they weren't exactly siblings, though they had been raised as such. Jazz had ever right to be surprised when she stumbled onto his file as his origins were considerably bizarre compared to the normal ones of his sister. Though his parents had wanted another child after May, it seemed that his older sister's birth had ruined their mother's body, and she became unable to birth a child ever again.

So when human biology failed them, they had turned to science. They couldn't just adopt a child like normal people would, no, they had the technology and the knowledge at their fingertips to make a child of their own. Although he was very fond of his parents, Matthew kind of got the feeling that they had weird thought processes.

So, instead of just adopting a child, they had created one from scratch. A literal test tube baby, if you would. Matthew had been constructed primarily using his father's DNA and could almost be counted as his clone. Even their fingerprints were the same, which he had to admit, kind of came in handy in his line of work.

After all, according to government records, his father was dead and Matthew didn't technically exist. Although it might have bothered some other people, knowing that they were somehow fake, it had never really bothered Matthew much. He wasn't really that different from other people and would have grown up to be fairly normal if May hadn't stepped in and changed everything.

His parents biggest mistake was that they didn't just kill her. While it might seem odd in their line of work, they strongly disliked the thought of having to kill anyone. And so instead of just taking the easy way out when May's true nature had been revealed to them, they had just dumped her in the most remote place they could find and hoped that she wouldn't be able to find her way back.

"Mm." Matthew rubbed at one of his eyes, having finished up his food. "Let's not think about the past." He mumbled to himself, getting up to toss the box and bottle in the garbage. "You're still alive, and that's all that matters." He told himself. May was dead and buried now. She could never bother him again.

_______________________________________________

As morning broke and the sunlight began to filter into the otherwise dark house, Sam groaned, turning a bit in her sleep. "Ugh." She moaned, trying to keep the sunlight out of her eyes. She shifted a bit, feeling something tighten around her body, and reached out to touch it, wondering what it was.

And woke up faster than she ever had in her life. Her face turned bright red as she looked down at Danny's arms, which were wrapped tightly around her chest. "Ah!" She said out loud, trying to work herself from his grip. The raven haired boy protested in his sleep and only tightened his grip, not seeming to want to let her go.

"Danny!" Sam hissed, her face as red as a cherry. "Come on, wake up already!" She groaned, kicking at him a bit.

The demigiest blinked, waking up slowly. He didn't seem to know where he was at first, but soon seemed to recall how he had got here. A small smirk formed on his face, and he pulled Sam closer to him. "No wonder I didn't have any nightmares." He told her. "I had the world's best dream catcher sleeping with me."

"Danny!" Sam huffed, clearly embarrassed. "Come on, let me go, will you?" She turned around, looking over at him. "Seriously, Danny."

"I don't know, I'm pretty comfortable now." Danny smiled at her, before he pulled his head closer, kissing her on the lips a little. The raven haired girl seemed to roll her eyes, but she returned his kiss this time. Maybe it would get him to let her go- damn his strength.

"_Now _will you let me go?" She asked him, arching an eyebrow. The demigiest just grinned, pulling his hands away from her. "Thank you." She said, getting to her feet. She searched around for her boots and grabbed them, tugging them on. "Ugh, what am I going to do about these?" She asked, looking down at her rumpled clothing.

"You look fine." Danny told her, sitting up on the fold out bed.

"You probably think I would look fine in a gorilla suit too, Danny." Sam pointed out, glancing back at him. "I can't wear the same outfit twice. It's going to start to smell, you know."

"I've got some changes of clothing if you want to borrow some stuff." Matthew said from behind them, causing both of them to jump. They didn't know he had come in. He blinked, tilting his head to the side. "I don't know if they'll really fit you," he said, pointing at Sam, "but they'll do in a pinch."

"Oh, thanks." Sam said, getting to her feet. "I'm actually feeling kind of hungry right now." She said, placing one hand on her stomach. She had just remembered she hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday.

"Ugh, same here." Danny made a face, getting out of the bed and grabbing his shoes, tucking them on. "You got anything to eat in this dump?" He asked, glancing over at Matthew.

"One second." He said, holding up a finger as he headed off into the kitchen. He paused, looking down at Jazz. Sometime during the night, she had drifted off into sleep, it seemed and was curled up on the floor. He paused, reaching down to pick up Danny's file, and tucked it away in the nearest box. He got the feeling the demigiest wouldn't be pleased to know that his sister had read it.

He opened up the refrigerator, looking around in it for a bit until he found a package of bread. He put it in the toaster, carefully sidestepping the sleeping redhead as he grabbed some plates. The brunette plucked them out of the toaster after awhile and headed back into the living.

"Sorry, I don't have a whole lot of breakfast food." He apologized to them, handing them the toast. "Do either of you want coffee?" He asked, having started a pot for himself earlier. If there was something he had in abundance besides beer and Chinese food, it was coffee. He almost needed the stuff to live.

"Ugh, no thank you." Sam's nose crumpled up at the mention, though she took the toast. She had never gotten to like drinking the stuff. "Where's Jazz?" She asked, noticing that the girl was not in the living room.

"Her?" Matthew asked. "I found her conked out in the kitchen. I guess she was having a midnight snack and fell asleep. She looks pretty tired so I thought I would leave her alone." He lied. It wouldn't be good if they went into the kitchen now, after all.

He didn't even need to see her face to know that she had cried herself to sleep. It wasn't something the two needed to see.

"So, do you two have any plans today?" Matthew asked, taking a seat on one of the boxes strewn about the room. Danny and Sam had taken a seat on the fold out bed, after a brief fight in which Danny had tried to convince the raven haired girl to sit in his lip, which she whole heartedly refused to do.

"You mean besides killing Vlad?" Danny asked him, taking a bit out of his toast. The whole thing was simple to him. After all, Vlad was only a human with one little minion. He couldn't touch him.

"Danny, we can't just rush out and do that." Sam eyed him. "I'm sure that just the sort of thing he's expecting you to do. We need some kind of plan."

"Ugh, don't look at me then." Danny made a face. "You and Jazz can come up with a plan. I still say that I should just go in there and kill the guy. I mean, he's only human." He paused, looking over at Matthew. "What? What's with that look?"

"_Yeah_, about that?" Matthew looked at them, seeming a bit sheepish. He knew he had left something out last night. "Um, that's not really the case. He's kind of _also _half-ghost. Sorry, I kind of forgot to mention it."

________________________________________________________

AN: Hm, yeah, that _would _kind of complicate things, wouldn't it?


End file.
